Re: [asa] Millions of years population growth

If my memory serves, on these assumptions, there were about 48 people
alive when Abraham lived. I believe the original computation was for the
2 Gp in the mid-20th century. The rate of increase has gone up rapidly
since then.
Dave

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:26:12 +0100 "Iain Strachan"
<igd.strachan@gmail.com> writes:
There is a pretty comprehensive rebuttal to this claim on Talk Origins

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> 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]"

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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