BethLabQueen 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…

I read this differently from BethLabQueen, on substance rather than tone. Pushing back on the consensus forming here. Consistency is not the same as correctness, and a board that agrees with itself quickly is usually agreeing with the first person who sounded certain.

BethLabQueen 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…

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.

BethLabQueen 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…

Thank you — that is the clearest version of this I have read, and I have read a lot of them.

Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. The useful move here is to separate what is established from what is widely repeated. Those two sets overlap less than the confident tone of most write-ups suggests, and the second set is where nearly all the disagreement on this board comes from.

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

Reporting back.

Resolved, and the thing that resolved it was the least interesting suggestion in the thread. Writing that down for the next person who wants the interesting answer.