I wasn’t trying to be snarky or unkind. The key to the sentence is the first bit around absence of evidence. If we can’t evaluate whether some action has an eff

I wasn’t trying to be snarky or unkind. The key to the sentence is the first bit around absence of evidence. If we can’t evaluate whether some action has an effect, then quite possibly it has no effect. That’s all I meant. With regards to evidence, in my lifetime experience to date (limited and what-not), there seems to be minimal correlation in this regard. Some people are mean even if I am nice to them and some people are nice even if I am mean to them. The correlation seems to be no better than a coin toss. Is that just my experience? Possibly. Anecdotal then? Absolutely. Is it equivalent to a social science experiment that assumes the conclusion? Certainly. I would say it’s better if I look objectively at data collected over the decades.