Creationists: can you explain post-Flood repopulation?

[OldWiseGuy]

Yes you do. In violation of several verses that warn against adding to the Bible and the consequences for doing so.

Filling in obvious details doesn't change the narrative.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Already done. Did you miss post #155?

And you are wrong by several orders of magnitude.

My example demonstrated population recovery, not unlimited growth.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Are you serious? Do you have any idea how long it takes a body to decompose?

Pretty fast under the right conditions.

And what would have kept all the soil from washing into the sea along with the bodies?

Some would have, but not all.

 

[PsychoSarah]

My example demonstrated population recovery, not unlimited growth.

You do realize that it takes a minimum of 50 or so humans to establish a sustainable population in which inbreeding doesn't destroy fertility, right?

 

[SpyderByte]

I have another question for the creationists in the forum (by "creationists" I mean the people who are Biblical literalists).

If you take the account of the Flood in the Book of Genesis as literal (ie, global flood with the only survivors being in Noah's Ark), how do you explain the Earth's repopulation and current human diversity starting with a population of 8 (related) people roughly 4400 years ago? Your explanation must respect the current archaeological evidence pertaining to this period.

Explain also how the current biodiversity was achieved from 2 animals of each "kind" and 7 of clean "kind" (note that, according to Genesis, 1 animal each of clean kind was sacrificed after the Ark came down on Ararat), plus whatever plants Noah and his family took into the Ark.

No magical explanations allowed, please.

-----SSH

Why would we need to invoke a miracle when simple mathematics will do?

Is it possible for Noah’s family to grow to 7 billion in only 4500 years? Yes, easily! Populations grow exponentially, just like money in a savings account. Population growth is compound growth like compound interest.

On the other hand, some simple figuring will show that if no Flood occurred, then using an evolutionary time scale, most of the human population is missing.

https://biblescienceguy.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/1-population-growth-could-noah-fill-the-earth/

All relevant equations are listed in this article as well as sources. Enjoy!

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Ya, for that you would need a single spontanious life form that needs to figure out how to find a food source, somewhere, figure out what part of itself will absorb the nutrients, what part will convert it to energy that it can use.

Then figure out how to self replicate, and then from this one solitary organism we can get all the genetic diversity of the earth.

But, you cannot get the biodiversity of just the human race from three related males and three unrelated females...... That's too much of a stretch..... somehow

And don't forget that the boy's mother probably imparted some diversity to her sons (I have my mother's thin frame. My dad was big boned and very stout). I knew a girl in high school who's parents were French, but she looked Asian. I dated a girl who had seven brothers, none of which looked alike in any way. Her father was Italian, mother Norwegian.

That's where the diversity ended however. They all had ten fingers, ten toes, etc.

 

[dad]

You do realize that it takes a minimum of 50 or so humans to establish a sustainable population in which inbreeding doesn't destroy fertility, right?

Not in the past. In fact for all we know the gestation period may have been 3 months. It may also have been the trend to have triplets or twins to a larger degree. I have even heard some suggest that Shem and Japeth and Ham may have been triplets. It seems to be the trend in the Old Testament also that a man had more than one wife in many cases. They also didn't wait till they were 52 years old and had a house and car before having a kid back then apparently. For all we know the age when one could have babies could have been a little earlier.

 

[freezerman2000]

All of the "for all we know" s ,suggestions and "It may also have been"s is not exactly concrete evidence.Care to back up your hypotheses with something more solid?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

All of the "for all we know" s ,suggestions and "It may also have been"s is not exactly concrete evidence.Care to back up your hypotheses with something more solid?

Highlight the 'probables' on any paper on evolution and watch it turn yellow.

 

[sandybay]

Highlight the 'probables' on any paper on evolution and watch it turn yellow.

Wishing won't make it so and never has.

 

[DerelictJunction]

Highlight the 'probables' on any paper on evolution and watch it turn yellow.

This sounds like a bare assertion made up to insult evolutionary scientists. Tell you what...prove it.
Pick any scientific paper on evolution, do the highlighting you suggested, and show us how yellow the paper becomes.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Wishing won't make it so and never has.

Are you saying there are no probables or assumptions in evolution theory?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

This sounds like a bare assertion made up to insult evolutionary scientists. Tell you what...prove it.
Pick any scientific paper on evolution, do the highlighting you suggested, and show us how yellow the paper becomes.

So you do admit there will be some yellow.

 

[lasthero]

Why would we need to invoke a miracle when simple mathematics will do?

All relevant equations are listed in this article as well as sources. Enjoy!

This article is messed up on numerous points.

Is it possible for Noah’s family to grow to 7 billion in only 4500 years? Yes, easily! Populations grow exponentially, just like money in a savings account. Population growth is compound growth like compound interest.

No, it doesn't. His calculations completely ignore things like carrying capacity, disease, famine, et cetera. For instance, the Black Plague actually wiped out a sizeable percentage of the world's population at the time - about 25 million people. Does he take this into account? Nope.

That is, let’s assume it takes 150 years for the population to double on average.

He never gives any reason why we should assume any such thing.

Reliable world population data prior to 1800 does not exist. All we have are estimates and guesses which could be wildly inaccurate.

He presents no reason why these estimates and guesses could be 'wildly inaccurate'.' Why is the populatuin data prior to 1800 any more or less reliable than the population data after it? He never says.

This is the graph he's going off of, and you'll not that it doesn't follow a compound interest calculation. People who actually do this for a living follow no such thing, and there aren't 'missing people'. The reason that the human population has skyrocketed in the past hundred or so years has to do with improvements in technology that allow for more people to live - the carrying capacity of our environment.

Carrying capacity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You'll note he doesn't make a single mention of this rather important detail. Human population has been very, very low for most of our history.

 

[sandybay]

Wishing won't make it so and never has.

Are you saying there are no probables or assumptions in evolution theory?

If something is not backed by evidence it is not included in the ToE or any science for that matter.

History might have a few probabilities or assumptions but even they are usually backed by some kind of evidence that prompts those assumptions.
Assumptions like, three hundred years ago because oil and wax was so expensive ordinary people usually went to bed when it got dark or sat talking by the fire or in the dark or outside in the moonlight.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

His calculations completely ignore things like carrying capacity, disease, famine, et cetera. For instance, the Black Plague actually wiped out a sizeable percentage of the world's population at the time - about 25 million people. Does he take this into account? Nope.

Bible history takes all of these into account including large numbers of deaths from wars.

 

[DerelictJunction]

So you do admit there will be some yellow.

I admit no such thing.

Requesting you to lift a 3-ton dump truck with your bare hands in no way signifies that I believe you can actually accomplish such a task.

Have you picked a scientific paper on evolution yet?

 

[Queller]

Filling in obvious details doesn't change the narrative.

1. The Bible doesn't say "you can add to the Bible as long as you don't change the narrative". The Bible states (in several places) "don't add to the Bible".

2. A lot of the details you provide aren't "obvious" at all.

 

[Queller]

My example demonstrated population recovery, not unlimited growth.

My example was not one of unlimited growth but of population growth at the rates you provided. You have given no answer to the question of when or why this population growth rate would have stopped.

I did exactly what you requested. I constructed my own model using numbers that you apparently thought were reasonable.

 

[Queller]

Pretty fast under the right conditions.

What conditions are those? Would those conditions have been in existence following the Flood?