Re: [asa] Millions of years population growth

"The Truth: If people have been on earth for a million years, there would be trillions of people on the earth today, even if we allowed for worst-case plagues, natural disasters, etc."

Likewise trillions of elephants, giraffes, deer, cats, dogs, bears, rabbits, etc., etc. There's a flaw in this argument somewhere. : )

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Iain Strachan<mailto:igd.strachan@gmail.com>
  To: Jon Tandy<mailto:tandyland@earthlink.net>
  Cc: ASA Discussion Group<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 5:26 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Millions of years population growth

  There is a pretty comprehensive rebuttal to this claim on Talk Origins

  http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html<http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html>

  As you say, their uniformitarian assumptions are not justified (hey, and that's what they always complain about conventional science! The words "pot" and "kettle" and the colour black come to mind).

  The uniformitarian assumption of growth rate is assumed, and also it seems to be assumed that population growth rates are homogenous over the world. But I would guess that, for example, very small communities would tend to remain in a single location, and would reach an optimum sustainable size for the community. I'm also guessing that transport, agriculture etc would stimulate population growth by connecting and mixing communities. Since all this stuff comes very late in the million years history, it's probably reasonable to assume that the population growth was pretty much zero for most of that time.

  I first came across this argument when a YEC colleague gave me a copy of "Creation" magazine to read. I made these points and he agreed that this particular claim of YEC's was highly questionable.

  Iain

  On 4/26/07, Jon Tandy <tandyland@earthlink.net<mailto:tandyland@earthlink.net>> wrote:
    My wife just bought a book on the human body at a homeschool conference, and realized afterward it was published by Answers in Genesis ("God's Design for Life - The Human Body", by Debbie and Richard Lawrence). Overall it's pretty good, aside from the section at the beginning, "How do I teach Creation vs. Evolution?" There were a number of statements here which I know how to answer, including some comparisons of "Evolutionary Myth" vs. "The Truth" -- except for one which I would like to ask here. I've read this one recently somewhere else, and would be interested in any comments on it.

    It says, "Evolutionary Myth: Humans have been around for more than one million years. The Truth: If people have been on earth for a million years, there would be trillions of people on the earth today, even if we allowed for worst-case plagues, natural disasters, etc. The number of people on earth today is about 6.5 billion. If the population had grown at only a 0.01% rate (today's rate is over 1%) over 1 million years, there could be 10^43 people today (that's a number with 43 zeros after it!) Repopulating the earth after the Flood would only require a population growth rate of 0.5%, half of what it is today. [Footnote referencing: John D. Morris, Ph.D., The Young Earth, p. 70-71. See also www.answersingenesis.org/go/people<http://www.answersingenesis.org/go/people>]"

    I haven't checked their math, but I'm sure their uniformitarian assumptions leave something to be desired. But how about the population growth after the Flood only requiring a 0.5% growth rate, versus the orders of magnitude longer time with the evolutionary history of mankind? I'm sure the growth rate earlier in history should have been higher than our present 1% due to larger families, but taking into account wars, plagues, disease, etc., the fluctuations in population could have been great too.

    Late in the book, when dealing with genetics, there was (I think) a rather unfair comparison of Darwin vs. Mendel.

    "Mendel performed his experiments at about the same time that Darwin was developing his theory of evolution. Unlike Darwin, who based most of his theory on guesses and suppositions, Mendel performed his research very carefully and recorded exactly what he saw. He was able to demonstrate each of his ideas by showing the data from his experiments. In fact, the results Mendel achieved contradicted Darwin's idea of selective breeding resulting in new species.
    Mendel was able to demonstrate that genes from the parents determine what teh offspring will look like. Therefore, he showed that one kind of plant or animal will always produce that same kind of plant or animal. Evolutionists have had to "update" Darwin's theory by saying that mutations (mistakes) in the genes are what caused the changes fromone kind of animal to another. However, nearly all mutations that have been observed have only resulted in negative changes, not positive changes as would be required for one creature to change into another kind of creature."

    There were a couple of other choice quotes in the book. In the beginning it describes the "scientific method", including making a hypothesis, observing the results of experiment, etc. "It's okay to have a 'wrong hypothesis.' That's how we learn. Be sure to try to understand why you got a different result than you expected."

    And, "Since the evidence does not support their theories, evolutionists are constantly coming up with new ways to try to support what they believe. One of their ideas is called punctuated equilibrium....There is no evidence for this, nor any known mechamism to cause these rapid changes. Rather it is merely wishful thinking. We need to teach our children the difference between science and wishful thinking."

    My comments to my wife were, too bad this YEC view of science isn't really science, because they propose a hypothesis, then throw out the test results which disagree with their predetermined belief. In fact, they are constantly "coming up with new ways to try to support what they believe" and engaging in "wishful thinking." The "evolutionists" (i.e. scientists) on the other hand are doing science, and regularly disproving current or past hypotheses based on actual data.

    Jon Tandy

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  - Italian Proverb
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Received on Thu Apr 26 13:32:59 2007