One concrete data point for the thread. One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number. A figure without its method cannot be checked, and an unchecked figure is how this community accumulates folklore.
Following on from Dr.ReproEndo — and this may be the naive question:
Was that from a primary source or from a summary of one?
SleepDoc_PDX said:One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number.
Coming at SleepDoc_PDX’s question from a different direction. It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false. If nothing would look different, it is not a claim about the world and no amount of discussion will settle it.
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Shop Reference StandardsClosing the loop on my own question.
Update, and it is the boring outcome: nothing was wrong. The measurement I was reading had moved less than its own week-to-week variation, which somebody said upthread and I did not believe.
pat_auckland said:It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false.
Right, and the exception is worth naming rather than left implied, because the exception is where people get into trouble.