PeptideChemSF said:

The useful move here is to separate what is established from what is widely repeated.

Same experience, arrived at from the opposite direction. The detail I would add is minor and it is already implied above.

PeptideChemSF said:

The useful move here is to separate what is established from what is widely repeated.

Coming at PeptideChemSF’s question from a different direction. The honest answer is that the effect is real, the magnitude is contested, and the individual variation is larger than either. Those three things can all be true at once, and most arguments here are two people holding different parts of that.

One concrete data point for the thread. Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look. It is a small discipline and it changes what you notice.

Correct me if the detail matters more than I have assumed.

One thing that is still open after PeptideChemSF’s answer:

What did you change at the same time, and can you separate the two now?

Reporting back.

Update: approved on the third attempt after a peer-to-peer. Nothing about my case changed; only who was doing the talking.