No,but they are the best predictor.
If we can’t use current trends then there is no point in any kind of speculation.
FR can only discuss the present and the past.
How interesting would that be?
But the fallacy of predicting future trends based on snapshot trends has been illustrated before. I think it was called the Malthusian catastrophe or something like that. I’ll have to look it up, but the long and short of it is that continued indefinite geometric population growth was as unlikely in the 1800s as would be indefinite geometric population decline now, notwithstanding current trends.
Of course, I could be wrong.