[kevinalexbrown]

But the evidence supports the idea that social isolation induces measurable changes in behavior and neural activity.

And you can definitely make causal inferences if you don't understand everything. If that weren't true, you wouldn't be able to infer that moving your arm makes the coffee cup in your hand move unless you knew everything about physics.

[lutusp]

> But the evidence supports the idea that social isolation induces measurable changes in behavior and neural activity.

The experiment showed a change in behavior resulting from a change in environment. There's no cause proposed that rises above opinion and conjecture. To be able to say why the change took place, we would need a falsifiable theory that offers an explanation, not just a description, which is all this study provides.

Further reading: http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm