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The Forum > Article Comments > Choosing the Book over books > Comments

Choosing the Book over books : Comments

By Nina Johnson, published 12/6/2014

If people are hungry for spiritual fulfilment at writers festivals, then they'll end up starving.

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But it does, Dan S de Merengue

>>Pericles, The problem of population growth is a real problem for the idea that people have been living in Australia for 40,000 years. The problem doesn’t disappear by suggesting that people are also dying.<<

Early civilizations were prone to mass annihilation, due to the fragility of their lifestyles. So we are not talking about any form of steady-state increase, but a fluctuation that includes a reduction to close-to-zero. In some parts of the world, this included a full reduction-to-zero.

>>I’ll try and put this simply. If more babies are born than people die in a year, then there has been a net increase. Imagine an increase of one percent. Such an increase over the years accumulates, a bit like money gaining interest in the bank.<<

That would seem simple enough.

However, let's exercise your model using the CIA World Factbook figures that the world annual birthrate, mortality rate, and growth rate are1.89%, 0.79%, and 1.096% respectively.

Starting with Adam and Eve, and allowing for your conviction that the Flood happened around 2350BC, there would now be a world population of 55 quadrillion people.

So that can't be right, can it.

If instead we reverse engineer the numbers, taking a starting population of 8 people following the Flood, we would arrive at our current population of 7 billion or so with a growth rate of 0.475% - not massively different from your own imaginary number.

Unfortunately, that leaves us with the unpleasant thought that when the Israelites arrived in Canaan around 1456BC, the total world population would be a massive... 548 people. Not a lot, really.

How would you suggest we handle this little problem, Dan S de Merengue?
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 12:33:10 PM
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Pericles,
Some populations, of course, will increase faster or slower than others, depending on their given circumstances. I'm only looking for what is possible and within normal bounds of reason.

As you suggest, starting with 8 people, given 4350 years, an average rate of about 0.475% annual increase, to arrive at a total population of about 7 billion (accepting your figures.) This is a reasonable expectation of what could happen.

Imajuliannutter,
'Shouldn't there now be at least 9 billion Egyptians?'
In a similar line, I don't think the Egyptian history is nearly that old. The dates surrounding their lists of kings is the subject of much interpretation.

'The Aborigines couldn’t have been suffering at zero increase or near extinction levels for 37,000 of their 40,000 year existence.' Why not?

I think that after 37,000 years (that's an awfully long time) they would have found solutions to whatever was troubling them. After all, we do credit them with a fair amount of intelligence. Alternatively, if their problems were insurmountable, then that would have killed them off (which evidently didn't happen.)

Populations either increase or decrease, usually they tend to increase (for the reason of human sexual drive, if nothing else.). It's simply extremely unlikely that they would stay at that knife edge of exactly zero percent increase for 37 of the 40 thousand years. Why should they?
Posted by Dan S de Merengue, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 1:38:22 PM
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I think you may have ever-so-slightly missed the point I was making, Dan S de Merengue.

>>As you suggest, starting with 8 people, given 4350 years, an average rate of about 0.475% annual increase, to arrive at a total population of about 7 billion (accepting your figures.) This is a reasonable expectation of what could happen.<<

This is the part you may have overlooked:

"Unfortunately, that leaves us with the unpleasant thought that when the Israelites arrived in Canaan around 1456BC, the total world population would be a massive... 548 people."

I await your views on that possibility with breath only slightly bated. Or indeed, any alternative theory you may have as to the population of the world in 1456 BC. Don't forget to comment on their geographic distribution across the continents with special mention of our Aboriginal friends - for example, how did they reach Australia, when did they first get here, and where had they come from?.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 5:53:53 PM
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Imajuliannutter,
The maths used here for population growth is not complex. It is simply applying a small annual percentage to the previous population, estimated over many years. Would you propose we did something else?

Pericles,
I suppose the question of where the Australian Aborignes came from might be an interesting one to explore. However, the question I’m raising (following Julian's comment) is when did they really arrive. The evidence suggests it wasn’t as long ago as many assume.
Posted by Dan S de Merengue, Thursday, 19 June 2014 8:54:43 PM
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But that's the point, Dan S de Merengue, is it not?

>>The maths used here for population growth is not complex. It is simply applying a small annual percentage to the previous population, estimated over many years<<

Which is an entirely wrong process. You are making the assumption that populations never decrease, which is of course completely fallacious.

>>Would you propose we did something else?<<

Obviously you would. By not assuming that populations grow at a continuous rate, but allowing for the fact that various populations have, over time, grown and decreased - sometimes disappeared completely. The fact cannot have escaped you that this must have been true, or your own young-earth creation model would not make sense.

Otherwise, how come there were only five hundred people in the world when the Israelites descended upon Canaan?

>>However, the question I’m raising (following Julian's comment) is when did they really arrive. The evidence suggests it wasn’t as long ago as many assume.<<

What evidence might that be? We know now that it cannot be this "evidence":

>>Start with any small number of people. Insert any population increase factor (however small,) and multiply by 40,000. The figure arrived at is astronomically big<<

So what else is there?
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 19 June 2014 11:46:27 PM
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The model I'm proposing for population growth is quite standard. I'm well aware that populations sometimes decrease. I never said otherwise. But over time, the tendency is for them to increase. This is observed evidentially. It's central to human nature. It's part of our human experience.

The figures are evident. But if you'd like to propose any type of realistic scenario that explains a population model fitting with the current Australian population over vast millennia (40,000 years), then you are welcome to demonstrate one.

Yet the most pressing and obvious conclusion is that a community on the Australian continent simply haven't lived here anywhere near that long.
Posted by Dan S de Merengue, Friday, 20 June 2014 12:36:04 AM
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