What would the population of the Earth be, if humans arrived 4350 years ago?

Question

Let's say humanity magically appear on earth with an initial breeding population of 4 men and 4 women. They are at a stone-age level of technology.

What would the human population of the earth be after 4350 years?

Serious answers only, please do not make guesses. Explanations as to how you arrived at your figure would be appreciated.


I'm investigating an argument for/against a literal interpretation of Noah's Flood.

Answer 1

There are too many variables to accurately predict what the population levels could have been.

A small population of humans, under ideal conditions can build up to pretty incredible numbers in a short period of time. Sort of like those demonstrations that show that the offspring from a single cockroach could cover the Earth in cockroaches two feet deep in ten years or whatever.

Starting with a population of only four families, if we assume that each family has only two children that live to reproduce, and that all of the adults who can reproduce do reproduce and each have two children that reproduce at age 20, after only 600 years those eight humans could be the ancestors of over 4 billion humans.

So there are a lot of arguments about why the biblical story of the Ark cannot be literally true, but the human population of the Earth is not one of them.

Answer 2

if it was 4 men and 4 women to Begin with - there will be no human race by now - Same blood marriages causes disable and mentally challenged children - we would all be loony.

The human race is much older than 4000 or 5000 years.

If you are talking about Homo Sapean's walking on planet - they started with more than 4 men and 4 women population - well as you have mentioned it would have not been any different to what it was like after 4350 years of Homo Sapeans walking on earth.

Answer 3

There is no way to tell. It requires assumptions about the number of children produced per generation, and the number of those who survive the usual environmental hazards to reproduce. The flood is, of course, fictitious, as can be seen for several reasons:
- There would have been a worldwide deposit of silt. No such deposit exists.
- All land would have been rendered sterile because of salt. Didn't happen.
- There is not enough water on the planet to inundate it. A trivial calculation with standard data shows that it would take a billion cubic miles of water to totally flood the planet. The actual amount of water available is a quarter of this.

Answer 4

Are you serious??? Come on, mate...get a life!!