Free Republic

The short answer is, it depends... However, putting some of these conditions aside and focusing on population size, the minimum number is likely very small compared with the approximately 7.8 billion people alive today. Smith's research into early human civilizations and space colonization gives him pretty good insight into our apocalypse survival hopes. He expects big cities would be most vulnerable if global civilization were to crumble, as they import almost all of their food and are heavily reliant on electricity. Surviving populations would, therefore, likely spread out to find resources. A surviving population of just a few hundred people...

Sci-Fi movies present no shortage of doomsday scenarios--asteroids, climate change and supervolcanoes just to name a few. But let’s say that one of these situations actually occurs, and humans are annihilated with the exception of one male and one female. Could humanity survive? The answer is a resounding...maybe, with the only certainty being that the surviving couple is going to be very, very busy. Variations on this scenario occur now and again in nature. They’re called bottlenecks, and they include any event that causes a drastic reduction in a population--think overhunting and natural disasters. Certain species, like dandelions, are great...