ingrid_STO said:

The mechanism and the magnitude are separate questions.

That is right, and it stops being right at the edges. The general case is well behaved; the interesting cases in this thread are all at the boundary where the general case breaks.

DanielChem_CHI said:

Agreed, with the usual condition: that holds for the average and this board is a collection of individuals.

This answered a question I did not know how to ask. Sending this to two other people who asked me the same thing last week.

ingrid_STO said:

The mechanism and the magnitude are separate questions.

Careful with the causal language. Two things moving together in a period when five things changed is not a mechanism, and stating it as one makes the thread less useful to somebody reading it later.

One concrete data point for the thread. Practical: whatever you change, write down the date and the reason. In three months the reason is what you will have forgotten, and the reason is what makes the record worth having.

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

Moderator note: leaving this open. It is being argued well and the disagreement is the useful part.