In my initial post I distinguish between two steps. The first is data. If you collected some data and can describe the methods well enough for others to replicate it then go ahead and publish it. There is no need to start theorizing about things like "the drug caused the difference" vs "there was a confounder that caused the difference".
Explaining the observations is a separate step from coming up with a reliable way to generate a pattern in the data.
Explaining the observations is a separate step from coming up with a reliable way to generate a pattern in the data.