Comment by godelski

  > For actual cargo cults, yes.

I'd say it is true for both. There's evidence that the actions cause the events. They correlate. It's why people start doing the actions in the first place. The exact reasoning you use, if it didn't "work" (appear to work) then the cult dies off pretty fast (and they do). Rationally irrational. It's good to be aware of because with high complexity systems it is easy to fall into these types of issues. Where you are doing A and you _believe_ are causing B, but there is no real relation.