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The solution to population variability is not to use variable models. That just trashes your result set.

There are enough confounding, uncontrollable variables in biology already.

Seeing how identical individuals from literally the same cell line in an exactly identical and controlled environment sometimes give different results I don't think you can ever achieve 'perfect controls' anyway. The solution is to delve deep into what things actually do (in the case of people I know, that involves a lot of live single-cell imaging and suchlike) but that's expensive.

I didn't propose any specific solution, all I said is that the field doesn't do enough to account for population variability. It is hardly acknowledged! You will find PhD students at top programs who say "huh hadn't thought about that being a problem before". Because the training and grants and whatnot largely revolve around this same experimental setup. And IMO it is not a good approach to have everyone working on these problems think in largely the same way.

Btw, in these cases where they find a result seems to only apply to a particular mouse strain, that feels like a pretty trash result to me too. What are we supposed to do with that knowledge? Currently what we often do is build on it, cite it completely out of context, and happily walk away with a publication.

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