This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1 · go to the accepted answer.
Post #27 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.
Correcting an out-of-date claim in this subcategory with a source and a date is more valuable than a new topic on the same question.
The evidence for this is thinner than the way I have phrased it suggests.
Building on post #31 rather than restating it.
The thing about irish differences that took me longest to accept is that a plausible mechanism is not evidence of an effect. It is a reason to look, not a result.
Irish differences is a good example of a question where the honest answer is boring and the interesting answers are unsupported. I would go with boring.
I came in to disagree and I am leaving without a disagreement.
Posting my irish differences numbers with the method attached so they can be discounted properly. Uncontrolled, unblinded, and collected by someone who wanted a particular answer.
Reading this irish differences thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not.
Building on post #40 rather than restating it.
What I would check first on irish differences is whether the thing being measured moved or whether the way of measuring it moved. Those look identical in a graph.
The version of irish differences that I was taught turned out to be a teaching simplification. Useful, and not true in the way I had assumed it was.
Post #44 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
On irish differences, I would rather understate and be corrected upward than overstate and be quoted. That is a house style here and it is a good one.
Where a member reports a decision, the useful detail is the stated reason rather than the outcome, because the reason is what generalises.
Reading it again, the caveat matters more than the finding.
I read post #47 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Compounding pharmacies: UK allows compounding under specific conditions when a licensed product is unavailable. That is not a front-line option but becomes relevant during shortages.
Picking up post #49: that is the part I would want checked first.
The most useful reply I ever got about irish differences was a request to state my units. It sounds like pedantry and it has saved me twice.
Counterpoint on irish differences, offered without confidence: the same observation is consistent with a much duller explanation, and nobody has ruled the dull one out.
Post #53 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
Anyone quoting an eligibility threshold should say which document it comes from. The thresholds have changed and the old ones are still circulating.
The number is defensible. The precision I gave it is not.
Irish differences is a question about a distribution, not about a value, and treating it as a value is what produces the confident wrong answers.
Sensible. I would want the same detail before I acted on it either.
I read the earlier replies on irish differences twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.