Saturated fats are not associated with all cause mortality, CVD, CHD, ischemic stroke, or type 2 diabetes.... [1]
The current available evidence found no significant difference in all-cause mortality or CHD mortality, resulting from the dietary fat interventions. [2]
[1] Intake of saturated and trans unsaturated fatty acids and risk of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.
BMJ. 2015 Aug 11;351:h3978. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h3978.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26268692
[2] Evidence from randomised controlled trials does not support current dietary fat guidelines: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Open Heart. 2016 Aug 8;3(2):e000409. doi: 10.1136/openhrt-2016-000409.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27547428
This review is based on two observational studies that began in the 1980s -- long after health-conscious people had heard the official wisdom that saturated fat causes heart disease. So, although the researchers try hard to control for individual differences such as exercise level, it's very possible that the people who ate the least saturated fat are also the ones who engaged in all sorts of other health-promoting activities, which were not controlled for. Epidemiologists call this the "healthy user" bias.
All that said, though, I agree that the impact of saturated fat on health is hardly clear-cut. As someone else in the comments mentioned, the best advice is probably the oldest: Moderation in all things -- including moderation.
there's a lot of recent (& to many:) convincing arguments that saturated fats have been demonized w/o cause, for social dynamics reasons. arguably "good calories, bad calories" was the book that started this modern reexamining of nutritional orthodoxy, but see also many other recent articles and studies.
