Pet photos thread — looking for input

wendy_avl said:

If you are comparing against somebody else’s result, check that you are comparing the same measurement taken the same way.

This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. Filing an objection on the n=1 problem. Personal experience is genuine evidence about one person and very weak evidence about anybody else, and this thread keeps promoting the first into the second.

wendy_avl said:

If you are comparing against somebody else’s result, check that you are comparing the same measurement taken the same way.

No disagreement with wendy_avl. One condition attached. Yes, and the corollary is less popular: if the reasoning holds, it also holds where it produces an answer we do not like.

wendy_avl said:

If you are comparing against somebody else’s result, check that you are comparing the same measurement taken the same way.

This answered a question I did not know how to ask. Printing the relevant bit and taking it with me.

Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. The version of this that has an answer is narrower than the version being asked. Narrow it and it becomes tractable; leave it broad and the thread will produce nine confident and incompatible replies.

Correct me if the detail matters more than I have assumed.

Closing the loop on my own question.

Update — I was wrong in the opening post, specifically about the direction. Correcting it here rather than editing it away.