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Caution should be taken when making claims of causality even when experiments or time-ordered investigations have been undertaken. The term ''causal model'' must be understood to mean "a model that conveys causal assumptions", not necessarily a model that produces validated causal conclusions—maybe it does maybe it does not. Collecting data at multiple time points and using an experimental or quasi-experimental design can help rule out certain rival hypotheses but even a randomized experiments cannot fully rule out threats to causal claims. No research design can fully guarantee causal structures.<ref name="Pearl09" />
=== Controversies and
Structural equation modeling is fraught with controversies. Researchers from the factor analytic tradition commonly attempt to reduce sets of multiple indicators to fewer, more manageable, scales or factor-scores for later use in path-structured models. This constitutes a stepwise process with the initial measurement step providing scales or factor-scores which are to be used later in a path-structured model. This stepwise approach seems obvious but actually confronts severe underlying deficiencies. The segmentation into steps interferes with thorough checking of whether the scales or factor-scores validly represent the indicators, and/or validly report on latent level effects. A structural equation model simultaneously incorporating both the measurement and latent-level structures not only checks whether the latent factors appropriately coordinates the indicators, it also checks whether that same latent simultaneously appropriately coordinates each latent’s indictors with the indicators of theorized causes and/or consequences of that latent.<ref name="Hayduk96"/> If a latent is unable to do both these styles of coordination, the validity of that latent is questioned, and a scale or factor-scores purporting to measure that latent is questioned. The disagreements swirled around respect for, or disrespect of, evidence challenging the validity of postulated latent factors. The simmering, sometimes boiling, discussions resulted in a special issue of the journal Structural Equation Modeling focused on a target article by Hayduk and Glaser<ref name="HG00a"/> followed by several comments and a rejoinder,<ref name="HG00b"/> all made freely available, thanks to the efforts of George Marcoulides.
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