bri_stats said:

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

True, and it depends on a baseline nobody has stated. Without knowing where someone started, the same number can be an excellent result or a disappointing one.

bri_stats said:

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

Saving this. It is the first explanation that did not require me to already understand it. Adding it to my notes with a link back to this thread.

Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. 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.

Dr.PeteFamMed said:

The honest answer is that the effect is real, the magnitude is contested, and the individual variation is larger than either.

Adding a me-too, because a thread of one person's experience is not much use. Nothing to add that would improve it.

Dr.PeteFamMed said:

The honest answer is that the effect is real, the magnitude is contested, and the individual variation is larger than either.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Most of what circulates confidently in this community traces back to one summary of one study, and the qualifier was dropped somewhere in the third retelling.