[alwa]

On the one hand, as a statistician memorably put it, “doesn’t matter how big the soup bowl is, you still need the same size spoon to taste what kind of soup it is.”

On the other hand, yeah these particular convenience samples seem almost deliberately weird. The entire apparent spike in 2023 seems to correspond to a one-off total switch to buying random bulk urine from Florida.

[burkaman]

Wow that is a great quote, really makes it intuitive why sample size doesn't have to grow with population size.

[tgv]

But it does grow with variability and effect size. And of processes you don't understand, you don't know these. So you often do need a big spoon, and to taste more than just the top. "This noodle soup is just water (p < 0.05)."