Posted on 02/22/2013 4:36:45 AM PST by koinonia
This is from a blog from a priest which I found original and convincing regarding the age of the human race:
Man's Millions-of-years Mathematical Myth debunked: p*b y = x
Let me propose an argument, rather simple, but which should convincingly indicate that the human race - whether through evolution or as an intact race - cannot date tens or hundreds of thousands of years back (let alone millions and zillions!). The argument is based on population growth and the 7 billion people on earth as of 2012. Seven BILLION people is a LOT of people and so one can readily imagine that it took tens of thousands of years to reach this point. And yet 7 billion is a very finite number...
According to sociological studies (frequently quoted and well documented by those who want to "save" the earth and reduce the human population by 90-95%, if you think I'm kidding take a glance at the "Georgia guidestones" and listen/read what Ted Turner has been saying like a broken record: 350 million ideal number for the entire world population and international 1 child per family policy), the rough average of population growth in the early 1900's (before contraception, legalized abortion, etc.) was 1.4%. We are told that Noah entered the ark with his three sons and their wives; when they exited the ark the world population was eight. Now population growth presumes that the number of births is greater than the number of deaths. God blessed mankind twice with the words: "Increase and multiply" (Gen 1:28; 7:17), the second time was after Noah and his family left the ark.
My dad was an actuary, by the way, so this type of story problem is write up my alley :-) First, let's do the math based on a 1.4% annual increase of the population starting with eight persons and see how many years it would take to arrive at 7 billion. The math would look like this:
p*b y = x p = the starting population, so 8 b = rate of annual growth, we'll start with 1.4% (which means 1.014) y = the years, since the growth would be exponential x = the final population, in our case 7 billion
Drumroll please... yes, eight people with a 1.4% annual growth rate would surpass 7 billion people in a whopping 1481 years. Take a look at the math:
8 people * (1.014 annual growth) 1481 years = 7,003,277,544
That is an eyeopener, is it not? Well, since the human race has obviously been around longer than 1481 years, let's work our way backwards to see what the median growth rate would have had to be for eight persons to arrive at 7 billion over a period of 4600 years (what Scripture scholars tell us would have been the time of the flood).
p*b y = x 8 people*(? growth rate) 4600 years = 7 billion today
And the answer is that for eight people to surpass 7 billion over a period of 4600 years the annual growth rate would only have to be 0.45% (yes, less than half a percent annual growth rate). 4600 years is realistic, then, for arriving at 7 billion people from 4 married couples.
My point here is that to argue that man dates back tens of thousands or more years ago would go completely against all the statistics. Annually there are always more births than deaths, and this even now with world wars, abortions, sterilization, contraception - in a word, in a culture of death. In fact a growth rate of 0.45% from 2 people over a twenty thousand year period comes out to be "infinity" on the exponents calculator (just put 1.0045 in the number slot and 20,000 in the exponent slot and see what happens). I don't deny that there could have been some unlikely years of decrease or stagnancy, but the consistent trend of all creatures has always been growth and increase and this indicates (if not outright proves) that the human race is relatively young compared to the outlandish theories that are proported (dare I say dogmatically) in classrooms today around the globe. Add to that that if we evolved from apes, we probably would not have started from just 4 married couples off of Noah's ark, but be popping out of the jungle in an ever larger numbers and then multiplying from these creatures, etc.
“You are using false assumptions, so you get obviously false results. You are for some reson blind to the false assumptions, which are so blindingly obvious to others.”
Excuse me? What assumptions have I made or what results have I stated? Maybe you have me confused with the original poster?
Again, I think you have me confused with the original poster, since you don’t seem to be responding to anything I actually posted about.
Please provide proof of what the population growth rate was 50,000 years ago...
Applying the population rates for the modern era produced by vast improvements in adaptive technologies to prehistoric and ancient cultures who did not possess such adaptive technologies nor such populations and population growth rates produces nonsensical results that actually contradict the possibility of such a “young” population origin. You are actually proving the opposite of what you claim.
Try answering the earlier questions in the illustrative example.
You just pointed out his two main problems:
1 - he based his permanent growth rate on relatively modern times with all the transportation and medicine that implies
2 - his math is built under the assumption that in general population simply grows
Through out history population didn’t simply grow. There are long stretches of no growth and negative growth, whole civilizations that just evaporated. Even in periods of general growth the rate was often much slower than in modern times. You can tell the flaw in his “logic” just by the fact that his 8 to current timeline doesn’t even get us back to the Roman Empire. Once his math worked out to 8 people after 500AD he should have seen his deep flaw and walked away from the hypothesis, known recorded history shows his math doesn’t work.
Throughout most of history the population rapidly hits the maximum levels the land can handle with years of starvation when things get a little rough. The drought of 2012 would have resulted in great starvation this winter if we were at the maximum level farms could sustain. Fortunately we have a surplus so we didn't have to face millions dead, but that is the normal fate humanity from prehistory to the 19th century.
“The argument I always get and still can’t come up with an answer (I know it’s there) is since the Bible only mentions Adam and Eve and Cain and Able where did the other people come from. I’ve answered that it’s the story of Cain and Able that was important not the family members of Adam and Eve. Secondly, maybe genetics were different then and intermarrying was not and issue. Then of course there’s Noah which brought up the same questions. But then Noah’s son’s hadn’t intermarried with their sisters. It’s all totally confusing and I wished I could come up with better answers. Yes I researched on the web.”
We are told in Genesis that Adam and Eve had sons AND DAUGHTERS. There was no need for other people. Incest would not have been an issue for quite a while until sin had had time to have major degenerative effects at which point certain close relationships were forbidden.
“The argument about contractions fails to take into account that, when you assume a large age, like 100,000 years, then the few years of negative growth become even more insignificant when looking at the aggregate growth rate. If we were only 5,000 years old, then the periods you cite are significant, but at 100,000 years old, a century or two of negative growth is negligible.”
Low population growth, virtually no population growth, and negative population growth for tens of thousands of years results in a poplulation of less than 1 million people aft some 250,000 years. So, the admonition that you are using false assumptions about the population growth rates and the significance of populaton declines is directly relvant to waht you posted above. You cannot just wave a hand in dismissal of the factors which had negative effects upon the rate of human populatio growth. Those negative factors had a profound impact upon the limitation of human population growth until the time came when technologies made it possible for much higher population growth rates and averages to offset the lack of such population growth rates in the earlier millenia.
36 posted on Friday, February 22, 2013 9:08:24 AM by Boogieman
“Notice how they flatten the rate at 4000BC for no apparent reason.”
It is not flattened for no apparent reason. The flattening is only an artifact of the graph using a variable scale on the vertical axis. It’s kind of like how Greenland appears huge on a Mercator projection, because the vertical scale distorts as you approach the boundaries.
“Low population growth, virtually no population growth, and negative population growth for tens of thousands of years results in a poplulation of less than 1 million people aft some 250,000 years. So, the admonition that you are using false assumptions about the population growth rates and the significance of populaton declines is directly relvant to waht you posted above.”
The poster I was responding to was not talking about tens of thousands of year periods, but periods of centuries, which is what the topic of my reply was. You want to move the goalposts and talk about thousands of year contractions, which basically proves my point. A few centuries IS insignificant, if you posit a 100,000 year plus time scale, unless those contractions were extraordinarily severe.
Modern man is a few tns of thousands of years old, but that’s about all. Hominids and Cro Magnons were real enough but we’re not related to hominids at all and the Cro Magnons had largely died out in catastrophes prior to Adam and Eve arriving here.
The Earth IS young, but the universe is eternal.
You're source is:
http://absoluteprimacyofchrist.org/?p=1436#APC05 ^
You're making Christianity look bad.
It’s about common sense.
It's a perfect example of the misuse of mathematics based on a flawed model.
Thanks - I should have known that. I feel like an idiot. Oh, well, it’s late here and I should have been in bed hours ago.
R/J
Maybe pick up a book by Francis Collins.
Actually a couple of centuries of population decline still matter even if the overall timeline is 100,000 or more years. If you’re positing at 1% annual growth then 1 year of -1% growth (decline) is taking 2 years out of your graph, the year of decline and the year to make it back. If your decline gets larger the effect on your graph gets worse. 1 century of 2% decline just cost your graph 300 years. That doesn’t even get into things like known sharp contractions like the Black Death, that chopped off 1/4 of the world’s population in 2 years. One or two of those will tear your graph to pieces, and there have been dozens.
“You’re making Christianity look bad.”~ says you...
Jesus read and affirmed the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God. So where exactly does this inspired text start being true for you, christian?
There is a concept called carrying capacity. A hunter-gatherer culture needs a lot of land per person in order to hunt/gather enough food. Once you reach the carrying capacity, the death rate from starvation rises to matches the birth rate.
When agriculture was invented, you could grow food for more people on a given amount of land. Innovations like irrigation, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc increased the amount of usable food you could get from a given acre of land, and thus increased the carrying capacity.
The human race is relatively young - 100,000 years makes us a very young species - as species go. We are a very homogenous population in DNA, despite the obvious superficial differences between human populations in skin color and other evolutionary adaptations.
From my prior link re: age of the universe:
88. The observed rapid rate of change in stars contradicts the vast ages assigned to stellar evolution. For example, Sakurai’s Object in Sagittarius: in 1994, this star was most likely a white dwarf in the centre of a planetary nebula; by 1997 it had grown to a bright yellow giant, about 80 times wider than the sun (Astronomy & Astrophysics 321:L17, 1997). In 1998, it had expanded even further, to a red supergiant 150 times wider than the sun. But then it shrank just as quickly; by 2002 the star itself was invisible even to the most powerful optical telescopes, although it is detectable in the infrared, which shines through the dust (Muir, H., 2003, Back from the dead, New Scientist 177(2384):28–31).
92. Speedy stars are consistent with a young age for the universe. For example, many stars in the dwarf galaxies in the Local Group are moving away from each other at speeds estimated at to 10–12 km/s. At these speeds, the stars should have dispersed in 100 Ma, which, compared with the supposed 14,000 Ma age of the universe, is a short time. See Fast stars challenge big bang origin for dwarf galaxies.
Not too mention also cosmic background radiation supports a young Universe - certainly not anything approaching the order of billions of years - modern secular science also claims 3 to 4.5 billion years for the age of Earth and our Solar System.
Then there is also the fairly recent research and accurate predictions from Russell Humphreys expanding upon the ideas of Albert Einstein.
Starlight and Time by Russell Humpheys
The key to the starlight and age of the universe is ‘gravitational time dilation’.
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