It isn't outrageous at all, it is common sense. You just cant say with any definitive confidence that this says the pots make any difference at all.
The two trees started in the nursery pots were bigger than the ones started in the other pots so naturally they are going to be bigger at the end... One of the trees in the smart pots looks a bit sickly. Can you definitely say it was because of the pot or could something else be a factor such as a fungus, an bug infestation? No you cant. The other tree looks fine. So you base your assertion on a 50% result? That is really conclusive....
The thought that this is in any way conclusive is laughable. I am sorry you cant understand that.
I can say with absolute confidence that you can't say that pots didn't have a role. On the flip side, I can say that as a "factor" pots could have played a role (even a significant role) in the difference between the plants.
Again, I was disagreeing with your statement, that starting material was the ONLY factor, and pots could not play ANY role in the difference between the two photos.
I'm not attempting to be conclusive. I don't need to be, I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm saying look at the pictures. The poster took the 4 JBP that are comparable and said all 4 plants were treated the same. The two in nursery pots look healthier (I don't care that they're taller, although vigor is a sign of health).
I then set about rationalizing why they might look better. Because poster is in Los Angeles, it's hot. Fabric wicks water. Cloth pots are made of fabric. Smart pots likely stayed drier than the nursery containers because of their material. The conditions that trees grow in factor into their general health, especially in container growing (aka if you don't water, the tree dies). General lesson learned, don't treat smart pots like nursery containers, especially in hot climates. A reasonable interpretation.
I derived value from a "non-scientific" experiment by a poster, and thought my comments would be valuable in provoking thought amongst other forum members who might not have made the same rationalization. And the next step would be someone else disagreeing with me based on their experience and I learn something from that disagreement.
Instead, we get these craptastic responses like "not enough data," "not scientific enough." What are we, robots? Even if he experimented with 100 trees, there would be someone out there that would say, "you only conducted one trial." Forget that. Why not just take it as a given that there is never enough data, and that's why this forum is here. I want everyone's best educated guess as to why those trees are different. There's so much experience with trees in this forum that it would be a painful waste to stop at the "cannot compute Will Robinson! Not enough data!" stage.