Fossil age estimation doesn't match with population statistic

[Wangsamax]

I read many estimations about suggested age of a fossil that tents to hundreds or more thousands years ago.
I wonder did the suggestor notice about population and their life age.
We modern humans population today around 7 billions life in thousands years.
All culture proof of modern human dated not exceded ten thousand years.
All homo erectus population found estimated only around 70.000 and their are estimated hundreds thousands years old??? It doesn't make sense to me.

Btw, please read my webcomic about creation in the book of comic in science perspective.
http://m.tapastic.com/episode/235239

It might answer your questions about how the universe existed, how was the early humans life, why humans wear clothes, cook, how the stone age begin, who are the homo erectus, homo sapiens, etc

Thx

 

[sfs]

I read many estimations about suggested age of a fossil that tents to hundreds or more thousands years ago.
I wonder did the suggestor notice about population and their life age.
We modern humans population today around 7 billions life in thousands years.
All culture proof of modern human dated not exceded ten thousand years.
All homo erectus population found estimated only around 70.000 and their are estimated hundreds thousands years old??? It doesn't make sense to me.

Btw, please read my webcomic about creation in the book of comic in science perspective.
http://m.tapastic.com/episode/235239

It might answer your questions about how the universe existed, how was the early humans life, why humans wear clothes, cook, how the stone age begin, who are the homo erectus, homo sapiens, etc

Thx

I can't figure out what argument you're trying to make here. What does the size of the human population (now or in the past) have to do with how long humans have been around?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I can't figure out what argument you're trying to make here. What does the size of the human population (now or in the past) have to do with how long humans have been around?

I think it's rehash of the old Creationist canard of "If humans have been on Earth as long as evolutionists claim, then where's all the thousand of skeletons" or some such.

 

[Wangsamax]

I can't figure out what argument you're trying to make here. What does the size of the human population (now or in the past) have to do with how long humans have been around?

We can calculate backward from population today and population growth to know when the population start.
This is the same as the big bang theory calculate the age of the universe with expansion rate.
Total population of ancient humans (homo erectus is one of the most populated) is only around 70.000 people.
It's not possible if they are dated live in hundred thousands years ago.

 

[SkyWriting]

It doesn't make sense to me.

It's difficult (impossible) to measure population growth and
mortality rates that were not written down.

 

[sfs]

We can calculate backward from population today and population growth to know when the population start.

Well, it's true that we can use current growth rates and calculate backward from the population today. By doing so, though, we will learn absolutely nothing. Populations do not grow at a fixed rate indefinitely; for prehistoric humans, growth would have been limited by the carrying capacity of the land they occupied, and the carrying capacity prior to the invention of agriculture is not large.

Today the population of Germany is 80 million, and is shrinking by 0.18% per year. If we extrapolate that rate backwards, we'll find that Germany's population 10,000 years ago was 5 quadrillion. Does that strike you as likely?

 

[[serious]]

We can calculate backward from population today and population growth to know when the population start.
This is the same as the big bang theory calculate the age of the universe with expansion rate.
Total population of ancient humans (homo erectus is one of the most populated) is only around 70.000 people.
It's not possible if they are dated live in hundred thousands years ago.

Known growth patterns are not constant. Say you are making sourdough. You have a lump of starter left over from your last loaf. It has some number of viable microbes in it X. Because resources are limited in that little starter, the growth is very slow. When you mix that starter into a new batch of dough, all of a sudden growth takes off and it grows exponentially until it starts running out of resources, at which point it levels off. During the exponential growth, you can use the number of bacteria to calculate when you introduced that starter to the new loaf, but you can't figure out how long the starter has been around.

Applying this to the human population and you can trace that exponential growth back. This doesn't take us back to the start of man though, but rather to the last time something major increased the carrying capacity of our culture, the start of agriculture. You can't, however, use it to trace back to the start of humanity.

 

[[serious]]

Well, it's true that we can use current growth rates and calculate backward from the population today. By doing so, though, we will learn absolutely nothing.

Well, not nothing. It can be used to estimate about when the carrying capacity of the globe changed.

 

[PsychoSarah]

We can calculate backward from population today and population growth to know when the population start.
This is the same as the big bang theory calculate the age of the universe with expansion rate.
Total population of ancient humans (homo erectus is one of the most populated) is only around 70.000 people.
It's not possible if they are dated live in hundred thousands years ago.

Our population did not grow at a consistent rate. Death before reproduction was far more common in the past than it was now.

Another way to put this into perspective is a common example of how resources limit populations. I present to you, an isolated field. In this field, there are 10,000 rabbits, and 100 foxes. Say that the foxes need to eat a rabbit every 3 days, and the rabbits reproduce at a rate of 20 every week. How long can the 100 foxes be sustained?

Limits on resources and medical understandings limited human population growth in the past severely. Eventually, we are going to reach a similar point where our population is too large to support, and it begins to decline due to a lack of resources. It has just been a while since the last time that happened to the whole human population.

 

[sfs]

Well, not nothing. It can be used to estimate about when the carrying capacity of the globe changed.

I don't see how the current growth rate enables you to estimate previous changes. It can set a limit on the time -- the population was never less than 2, basically -- but that's about it.

 

[[serious]]

I don't see how the current growth rate enables you to estimate previous changes. It can set a limit on the time -- the population was never less than 2, basically -- but that's about it.

Let's use an analogy, say you inoculate a sample with some strain of yeast, as long as the yeast is still in the exponential phase, you can calculate roughly when you introduced the strain if you know the growth rate. This doesn't factor in lag phase of course, nor changes in growth rate due to population density, but it isn't COMPLETELY worthless.

 

[sfs]

Let's use an analogy, say you inoculate a sample with some strain of yeast, as long as the yeast is still in the exponential phase, you can calculate roughly when you introduced the strain if you know the growth rate. This doesn't factor in lag phase of course, nor changes in growth rate due to population density, but it isn't COMPLETELY worthless.

Sure, if you have reason to think that the environment, and thus the growth rate, has been fairly constant, you can learn something. But for humans that's manifestly not the case; the growth rate has changed dramatically, both locally and globally, over the last few thousand years.

 

[Loudmouth]

Time for . . . drum roll . . . . FUN WITH MATH!!!!!

Here is a nice graph of bacterial growth that you would measure over certain time periods:

For that chart, the generation time is about 3 hours (i.e. 3 hours between each doubling of the population).

As you can see, this chart is exponential, much like the chart we see for modern human population growth. Let's set the weight of a single bacterium at 1x10^-12 (or 1E-12 in shorthand). Using the same argument as the opening post, obviously the Earth could not have been around for more than a day or so? Why is that?

Let's do the math. If we start the population with a single bacterium at 1E-12 and a generation time of 3 hours, then we would have 2E-12 in bacterial mass after 3 hours. Let's keep this process going for 3 days, or 24 doublings. We are now at 0.000016777216 grams, or 16 micrograms. Let's go another 9 days. Now we are at 7.9E13 kg. It's starting to add up.

At 15 days? Now we are at about 3E49, which is way more than the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined.

So the Earth has to be between 9 and 15 days old. The math doesn't lie.

 

[justlookinla]

Time for . . . drum roll . . . . FUN WITH MATH!!!!!

Here is a nice graph of bacterial growth that you would measure over certain time periods:

For that chart, the generation time is about 3 hours (i.e. 3 hours between each doubling of the population).

As you can see, this chart is exponential, much like the chart we see for modern human population growth. Let's set the weight of a single bacterium at 1x10^-12 (or 1E-12 in shorthand). Using the same argument as the opening post, obviously the Earth could not have been around for more than a day or so? Why is that?

Let's do the math. If we start the population with a single bacterium at 1E-12 and a generation time of 3 hours, then we would have 2E-12 in bacterial mass after 3 hours. Let's keep this process going for 3 days, or 24 doublings. We are now at 0.000016777216 grams, or 16 micrograms. Let's go another 9 days. Now we are at 7.9E13 kg. It's starting to add up.

At 15 days? Now we are at about 3E49, which is way more than the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined.

So the Earth has to be between 9 and 15 days old. The math doesn't lie.

And bacterium produce bacterium which produce bacterium.

 

[[serious]]

Sure, if you have reason to think that the environment, and thus the growth rate, has been fairly constant, you can learn something. But for humans that's manifestly not the case; the growth rate has changed dramatically, both locally and globally, over the last few thousand years.

Oh, I'm certainly not saying it's a great estimate, but it tells us something.

 

[USincognito]

1. Counting backwards shows you have 11 fingers. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 plus 5 on the other hand is 11.
2. Some of these Creationist calculations wind up with say 10,000 world wide when the pyramids of Giza were built or 800,000 world wide when greater Greece was known to have over a million alone.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I read many estimations about suggested age of a fossil that tents to hundreds or more thousands years ago.
I wonder did the suggestor notice about population and their life age.
We modern humans population today around 7 billions life in thousands years.
All culture proof of modern human dated not exceded ten thousand years.
All homo erectus population found estimated only around 70.000 and their are estimated hundreds thousands years old??? It doesn't make sense to me.

Btw, please read my webcomic about creation in the book of comic in science perspective.
http://m.tapastic.com/episode/235239

It might answer your questions about how the universe existed, how was the early humans life, why humans wear clothes, cook, how the stone age begin, who are the homo erectus, homo sapiens, etc

Thx

This is a very old PRATT.

The lesson of today: population growth is not a straight curve. Population growth is not a constant over time.

Our population boomed with the rise of the enlightment age and everything that followed: industry, advancements in technology, advancements in medicine, agriculture, storage technology of foods and such, etc... in short: with the advances of science in the past few centuries.

A population can only grow as large as the environment (=society) can sustain.

Advancements in science gave us the tools to be able to sustain a lot more people, and keep them alive for a lot longer.

In fact, one of the biggest challenges for governments in the 21st century is to financially deal with the large amount of old people that retire and no longer contribute to society in terms of productivity (= creating "value").

No more then a few centuries ago, you were considered lucky to live past the age of 40.

 

[Loudmouth]

1. Counting backwards shows you have 11 fingers. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 plus 5 on the other hand is 11.
2. Some of these Creationist calculations wind up with say 10,000 world wide when the pyramids of Giza were built or 800,000 world wide when greater Greece was known to have over a million alone.

It is rather ironic when creationists argue so vehemently that uniformitarianism is wrong, and then they misapply the concept in trying to prove that the Earth is young.