TrialNerd_Beth said:

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

Coming at TrialNerd_Beth’s question from a different direction. It helps to say which part of this you are uncertain about. A precise question gets a precise answer; a general one gets everybody’s favourite anecdote.

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.

Moderator note: good thread. Keeping it here rather than moving it, because the question is general enough to be useful. Carry on.

HPLC_Greg said:

Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look.

I am going to disagree with the direction of travel here. The thread has converged on the tidiest answer rather than the best-supported one, and those are not the same thing.

HPLC_Greg said:

Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look.

That holds where the measurement is reliable. Where it is noisy — and a lot of what gets tracked here is noisy — the same reasoning produces confident nonsense.

I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.