But statistical significance does NOT prove causation.

This is extremely important for institutional argument.

Suppose you discover:

Historians at prestigious universities receive more citations.

Statistics may establish that the difference is unlikely to be merely random.

But it does not automatically establish:

“Prestige causes more citations.”

Perhaps prestigious universities also have:

better research funding;

more famous scholars;

stronger libraries;

better graduate students;

more publication opportunities;

researchers working in more popular fields.

These are alternative explanations or confounding variables.

So statistical analysis answers one question:

Is the observed pattern plausibly more than random variation?

It does not by itself answer the entire causal question:

Why does the pattern exist?

For causation, you need additional design, controls, comparisons, longitudinal evidence, natural experiments, qualitative evidence, or other appropriate methods.