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Notes -
Right. I'm aware of over-relying too much on such aged and inferred models. But what other data is there to trust about that timeline? It's better than trusting mine or anyone else's independent and unqualified speculation.
If there's a lack of reliable data to form an estimate, then the rational response is agnosticism, not using unreliable data.
In absolute terms, sure. In a shade of gray and probabilistic sense, no. Just because some data is unreliable doesn't mean it's completely unreliable. If you can't make 'any' use of it, fine.
In this case, I think the worry is that you should expect apparent divergence between the data for the two populations (men and women) to be different because of a selection effect, so there's no reason to infer that the divergence is actually a property of the populations (rather than your samples). It's like estimating the number of bats in two forests, but measuring one forest at night and the other in the day.
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