> correlation studies actually can have significant value - otherwise peer-reviewed journals wouldn't publish them
This is an appeal to authority. And unfortunately, the evidence is accumulating that there are problems with that authority. The success of peer-review depends on the quality of the peers and of the review. If those reviewing don't understand how to evaluate a correlation study, or do understand but don't take the time to properly evaluate it, then garbage will slip through.
It turns out, lots of garbage is produced and sent to the reviewers, as was noted in a recent Nature feature:
This is an appeal to authority. And unfortunately, the evidence is accumulating that there are problems with that authority. The success of peer-review depends on the quality of the peers and of the review. If those reviewing don't understand how to evaluate a correlation study, or do understand but don't take the time to properly evaluate it, then garbage will slip through.
It turns out, lots of garbage is produced and sent to the reviewers, as was noted in a recent Nature feature:
http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-statistical-err...
see also:
http://www.nature.com/news/weak-statistical-standards-implic...
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/reproducibility/index.htm...
---------
tl,dr; lots of crappy correlation studies are published in peer-reviewed journals. These studies later turn out to be irreproducible.