Dr.SleepRoch said:

It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false.

Coming at Dr.SleepRoch’s question from a different direction. Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it. The narrow version usually has an answer; the broad version usually does not, and answering the broad one is how a thread stops being useful.

Happy to go further on any of that.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. 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 same conditions. Nobody wants that answer and it is still the answer.

One thing that is still open after Dr.SleepRoch’s answer:

How would you tell the difference between that and the alternative explanation?

PeptideSynthNJ 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. Filing an objection on the n=1 problem. Personal experience is genuine evidence about one person and very weak evidence about anybody else, and this thread keeps promoting the first into the second.

Reporting back.

Closing the loop. The answer turned out to depend on the detail I had left out of the opening post, which is a lesson about how to ask rather than about the subject.