Dr. R, what is your source?

Question

"without modern un-edenlike agriculture, the earth could only support a billion people or so"

yo doc:
you really don't think that we as a race have not advanced our ways of authentic agriculture since the hunter gatherer times?

Answer 1

This refers to an answer I gave for "Why would you not want to create Eden?" in Environment. I'm not sure why a new topic in Physics was posted on this instead of a follow-up in the original question but, whatever, it got my attention.

In this context, "Eden" I interpreted to mean prior to a time where living by the "sweat of the brow" is needed. This means greenies win, everything returns to nature, and everyone makes do with what they find growing naturally. The closest this has ever come would be preagriculture forager societies, or, at most, hunter-gatherers. Yes, I know they actually had to work, but it's as close as you can get to not disturbing the environment. The earth's population was only about 8 million in 8000 BC when folks lived like this, so I was being rather generous at 1 billion.

Yo InJoy, If I recall my Bible stories, Eden = *no* agriculture, "authentic" (whatever that means) or otherwise. The problem with creating your own language is that you lose the ability to understand English, and you'll only be able to talk to each other in Green-Speak.

Answer 2

If this is sourced then I very much doubt its validity.

The Earth's population reached a billion in the 1850s, long before he had any eden like agriculture and 100 years later it was 2.5 billion (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html).

If you're interested in the answer to how much of a population Earth can support then this book, 'How Many People Earth Support' is a good read...

http://www.amazon.com/How-Many-People-Earth-Support/dp/0393314952

Answer 3

Probably uses measures and averages with a little statistics thrown in for good measure.

You would probably get a better answer if you posted this in "AGRICULTURE."
.