bri_stats said:

One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it.

Genuinely useful, thank you. I had the facts and not the framework. Adding it to my notes with a link back to this thread.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads. 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.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

sean_dublin said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

Same experience, arrived at from the opposite direction.

sean_dublin said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. 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.

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

Resolved, and the thing that resolved it was the least interesting suggestion in the thread. Writing that down for the next person who wants the interesting answer.