This is a technically challenging but not impossible task with the right data, and researchers are progressively developing both the datasets and the methods needed to address it.

The Scientific Method as Applied to Uncertainty

One of the most valuable lessons that the Population Y debate offers — for people interested not just in the specific science but in how science works — is a demonstration of how scientific knowledge develops in the face of genuine uncertainty.

The 2015 paper that named Population Y was not wrong to report what it found.

The statistical signal it identified was real, and the models it proposed to explain the signal were reasonable responses to the evidence available at the time.