LindaRN_retired said:

Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it.

Coming at LindaRN_retired’s question from a different direction. 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.

One concrete data point for the thread. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

Following on from LindaRN_retired — and this may be the naive question:

Was that from a primary source or from a summary of one?

DataDave said:

Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a…

I read this differently from DataDave, on substance rather than tone. The objection nobody has made: this only works if the measurement is doing what we assume it is doing, and that assumption has not been tested here.

DataDave said:

Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a…

Correct, and worth adding that it is reversible. Nothing being described here is a one-way door, which changes how cautious it is reasonable to be.