What about the population?

Question

4. Population Statistics...World population growth rate in recent times is about 2% per year. Practicable application of growth rate throughout human history would be about half that number. Wars, disease, famine, etc. have wiped out approximately one third of the population on average every 82 years. Starting with eight people, and applying these growth rates since the Flood of Noah's day (about 4500 years ago) would give a total human population at just under six billion people. However, application on an evolutionary time scale runs into major difficulties. Starting with one "couple" just 41,000 years ago would give us a total population of 2 x 10 to the 89. 9th power. The universe does not have space to hold so many bodies.

Answer 1

Why do people ask ,"whats the question?" I mean so what if they want to get something off their chest. But yes, its something for everyone to think about.

Answer 2

The Malthusian doctrine, though much maligned said that population is kept in check by such things as famines, wars etc and was much maligned. Great advances in agriculture coupled with the great advances in medical technologies not only increased the procuctivity of the land - but also kept famine and disease at bay. Other technological advances are being made. The seas are being farmed and new hybrid varieties are being developed of plants and seeds to increase productivity even more. The life span of humans are increasing to longer life spans. The social sciences are putting pressure on people to improve the quality of life rather than the size of the basic family unit. And man is on the threshold of venturing into space to expand the horizons of mans boundaries. Machines are taking up more and more of mans work. The creaky old earth still supports the billions. The growth rate of population is declining. Human clones are well under way to becoming reality demonstrated by Dolly the Sheep.
The list goes on and on. And the universe is much larger than the earth. Alpha Centauri is only a few light years away. Machines may soon be able to act as the artificial womb to create the new human born from test tubes. So your basic premise that the universe does not have space to hold so many bodies can only be treated as a hypothesis and at the present time can not be treated as a certainity or a Law. That was certainly a most intelligent and enlightening thought and you have very rightly laid out the pitfalls on the way to a larger population of humanity

Answer 3

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but I am sure that you have missed out countless contributing factors in your equation. As you can clearly see, there are not so many people that they fill the universe, so you must have gone wrong with your calculations somewhere. Let's see... it was probably a mistake to extrapolate current exponential growth all the way back to the Stone Age... you were probably still fixated on the Bible when you assumed a starting population of 2... you have also ignored the possibility that famine etc. would have a substantially larger effect on smaller populations...

Answer 4

Apparantly, you're not familiar with Malthusian economics. Populations tend to cull themselves when they exceed the limitations of their environments.

Why should we assume a 1% growth rate over time? What makes this a "practical application" rather than a random guess? Where do you get your 82 years number? That doesn't seem rather arbitrary to you? There were only twenty years between WWI and WWII, the two greatest population killers of all time.

What you've proven here is that if you start out with innacurate numbers and multiply them 41,000 times, you end up with REALLY innacurate numbers. Please, do yourself a favor and quit cutting and pasting. Or at least research what you cut before you paste it.

Answer 5

About fifty years ago, the school I was attending took a field trip to the Brookfield Zoo, by Chicago. In one exhibit, they had a Plexiglas's box with white mice in it. The sign said they only put so much food and water into the box each day. When the population of mice exceeded what could be maintained by that amount, the mice would begin to fight and kill each other. The mother mice would kill their own litters. After the number of mice dropped back down, everything was peaceful again. A powerful leas on. Mayhap this is why we are having so many wars, plagues, and natural disasters?

Answer 6

Read Malthus - he has a series of "checks" that limit the population of any species to a manageable level. Plague, wars, famine, natural disasters... all of these help to keep populations down. And don't forget we die, and some of us don't have children, and others commit mass murders... obviously your math is off or there would be a lot more than 2 people living on my 1/2 acre of land!

Answer 7

Ha ha ha the first person didn't even read what was said.

Question asked is do you feel evolution is wrong because of the population of the world.


I would agree. Though even with major disasters and plagues population isn't what it would be if man has been around as long as most say.

Id say the flood was probably 6000 years ago though.

Answer 8

There are many more Spirits in the universe than could ever be counted. They populate not only our Earth, but un-countable planets throughout the universe, as well as the disincarnated in the Spirit World. The universe is infinite.

Answer 9

Ya Noah...

The rate of change of human population is not a constant. It is different today than it was 10, 100 or 1000 years ago. All you have proved here is your lack of math skills.

Answer 10

there is a reason for everything....and some how some way it will work out. think about all the useless killings going on these days. i live in houston and you can't turn the tv on without hearing about the 5 different murders that happened.....and the truely sad part bout that is that is every day. so that alone makes room for more population.......not to mention all the different types of cancers and diseases out there killing people as well. all things happen to all people for some reason.....

Answer 11

You made a statement, not a question. How about the meteor collision in the Jurasic era? I think that might have slowed down the population growth a tad.