Sympathetic magic was one of the first forays into actual science. It sought explanatory power for phenomena. That they did this ass-backwards and propagated through superstition and rumor is why it's not actually science, but when you start talking about controllable and manipulable mechanisms, you've taken the first important step.

"Magical thinking" doesn't refer to this. It refers to an utter ignorance of the mechanism, leaping from observation to conclusion without isolating any variables experimentally.