The day a few people posted some comments about crank length in another thread, the following ironically appeared from one of my subscription feeds:

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/why-shorter-cranks-are-better-according-to-science.html

Note that this article is written from a mountain biking perspective, which doesn't really need to focus on steady-state pedaling, and is less likely to create a repetitive stress injury situation that road cycling would. Mountain bike is much more prone to short bursty power with wide cadence ranges. Biomechaically, this is very different. I have had a lot of trouble over the years with my iliotibial band (ITB) vis repetitive stress, and found that I was able to mtb for hours with no pain, even when a flare up would make me stop road cycling after 20 minutes.

Still, There is a decent body of evidence that supports the idea of short crank lengths, and indeed, _very_ short crank lengths

https://www.powercranks.com/cld-more.html

This is a very long and wordy article, spoiler alert, the author sells short cranksets. I think the science is reasonably solid though, and has links to the various studies he references.

For me personally, I've ridden everything from 165 to 175, and can't really tell a whole lot of difference. YMMV, and usually does.