The whole "correlation does not imply causation" thing is completely misunderstood.
The issue is with the meaning of the word "imply"; when used in the formal sense as it appears is Classical Logic, correlation does indeed not imply causation.
In common parlance however, "imply" is often used to mean "provides evidence for", and correlation can indeed provide (potentially strong) evidence for a hypothesised causal link; the problem lies in people reading "correlation does not imply causation", assuming the informal meaning of "imply", and then going on to reject any notion of causation which uses observed correlation as evidence.
Pretty much every empirical science uses notions of correlation (in its various formal statistical guises) to provide support for causation, indeed to reject such reasoning would be to invalidate huge swathes of mainstream accepted science; half the battle in these instances is making the leap from correlation to causation in a manner which is considered scientifically sound.
