I was going to complain that the language quoted from the abstract in the frog paper is sufficiently couched that it’s not clear the researchers thought they were measuring anything at all. Saying that X “suggests” Y “may be explained, at least partially” by Z seems reasonable to me (as you said, they had at least not ruled out that Z causes Y). Then I clicked through the link and saw the title of the paper making the unambiguous assertion that Z influences Y.
I was going to complain that the language quoted from the abstract in the frog paper is sufficiently couched that it’s not clear the researchers thought they were measuring anything at all. Saying that X “suggests” Y “may be explained, at least partially” by Z seems reasonable to me (as you said, they had at least not ruled out that Z causes Y). Then I clicked through the link and saw the title of the paper making the unambiguous assertion that Z influences Y.