LabKate said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. This treats a plausible mechanism as a demonstrated one. Plausible is where you start looking, not where you stop.

LabKate said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

Agreed, with the usual condition: that holds for the average and this board is a collection of individuals. A population claim and a personal prediction are different things and get quoted interchangeably.

LabKate said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

This answered a question I did not know how to ask.

From the other side of the consultation, briefly. The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person. Both are real; they answer different questions and get quoted as if they were the same one.

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Closing this out: the trough rather than the peak explains the pattern I was seeing on day six, which I had been blaming on the vial.