Backing data that's strong enough to satisfy some critics is impossible to obtain. Anecdotes? Obviously not OK. Small-scale controlled experiments can be dism

Backing data that's strong enough to satisfy some critics is impossible to obtain. Anecdotes? Obviously not OK. Small-scale controlled experiments can be dismissed as nothing more than pointless toy exercises that have no bearing on real-world production code. Large-scale controlled experiments are impractical. Blinding and placebos aren't possible. Isolating confounding elements such as individual performance would be difficult. Burden of proof is burdensome, I guess.