How many human beings have lived and died since our species first appeared?

Question

And how would you work it out?

Answer 1

You can't PROVE how many people have ever lived, but you can certainly estimate it. And your estimates are going to vary depending on exactly what assumptions you use to justify it.

One set of calculations that seemed pretty sound to me assumed that the first instance of what we would call 'humanity' appeared about 50 thousand years ago (a somewhat disputable postulate) and used pretty rough estimates about birth rates, but at least when it was compared to fairly well accepted benchmarks of population it worked out well. And the result:

110 billion people have ever lived, leaving about 5% of the total population ever alive being still around today (making around 100 billion dead people, in round numbers).

Answer 2

take the average life span of humans over a segment of time. For that peroid of time, count the average population. Go back past that time, get the average life span, subtract that from the starting point of the first one, get the average number of people alive during that period and add it to the first. Do this about 50,000 times and youll have your answer. (i'm estimating we've been around 2 million years, average life span of 40 years since our existance) after a few years back, the numbers arent going to change much so you can use some calculus here.

Answer 3

Start with yourself. Add your two parents = 3 One generation
Add your grandparents (4) = 7 (2 generations)
Add Gt. grandparents (8) = 15 (3 generations)
(are you back to the beginning of the 1900's yet?)
Add your 2x Gt. g'paprents (16) = 31 (4 generations)
Add your 3x g'granparents (32) = 63 (5generations)
Your own ancestors double with each generation; after 20 generations your own ancestors will number 651,264 people
A generation is roughly 25 years
How many generations back to when homo sapiens first appeared?
Unfortunately, Mr. Spock had a word for it which I can't remember, this doesn't hold water because you reach the point where you have more ancestors than the estimated population back in the Middle Ages. Knew I shouldn't have had that last glass of wine!

Answer 4

It is really impossible to know for lots of reasons. I mean there are good, educated guesses but you have to consider a) there might be arguments as to when our species actually did appear, b) censuses are a fairly *recent* development, c) record of ancient censuses and family records have been lost over time that modern day probably has never seen, d) ther are probable native and tribal populations living in secluded areas that no one has ever seen or will ever see, e)improper records of epidemic diseases and natural disasters taking huge numbers of people in a short span of time.

There are lots of factors to consider really, this are just a few of the factors I thought of off the top of my head.

Answer 5

I have heard it said that there are more people alive today than have lived and died.
I think it is a good legitimate question and I would like to know the answer.

Answer 6

I've started to count and will be in touch when I'm finished. Hope you appreciate I may be some time.

Answer 7

try doing this in your head:
there are about 7 billion of us, take that number and decrease that by .0001% for the amount of years you need, then take that number and subtract 1 for every three seconds in the amount of years you have, then add 1 for every five seconds you wanted and then *** 7 billion, sorry my calculaltor doesn't go all the way to avagadro's number

Answer 8

Got no idea , but a star from me, what a great question!

Answer 9

1,387,669,140, 332 last time i counted.

Answer 10

100000000000000000000000000.

just a guess?