Evidence for God from Science

How about I rephrase (part of) the original post ?

In 1997, there were 6,000,000,000 people on earth. Assuming an exponential growth law, what are the percentage growth rates for the following two models ?
1) 8 people starting in 2344 BC, 4340 years till 1997 (no year zero).
2) 1 mitochondrial "Eve" starting 100,000 years ago.

1) 0.470866 % growth rate produces 6,000,003,813 people.
2) 0.022515 % growth rate produces 5,999,848,165 people.

Because the current growth rate is ~ 1.3 % (another post), then the Flood model is reasonable (off by a factor of ~3), but the evolution model produces a growth rate which is too small to be considered reasonable (off by a factor of ~50).

Is this more or less the argument ?

BGoodForGoodSake wrote:Because people dont grow in increments. Its compounded.

Or use the link posted earlier to do your calculations http://waynesword.palomar.edu/lmexer9.htm

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Jbuza wrote:

sandy_mcd wrote:How about I rephrase (part of) the original post ?

In 1997, there were 6,000,000,000 people on earth. Assuming an exponential growth law, what are the percentage growth rates for the following two models ?
1) 8 people starting in 2344 BC, 4340 years till 1997 (no year zero).
2) 1 mitochondrial "Eve" starting 100,000 years ago.

1) 0.470866 % growth rate produces 6,000,003,813 people.
2) 0.022515 % growth rate produces 5,999,848,165 people.

Because the current growth rate is ~ 1.3 % (another post), then the Flood model is reasonable (off by a factor of ~3), but the evolution model produces a growth rate which is too small to be considered reasonable (off by a factor of ~50).

Is this more or less the argument ?

Yeah that I would say sums it up quite well. I would point out that I did an average growth I think of 500 years, and came up with an average growth rate of .04% So I might argue about it being off as high as a facter of three and a factor of 50.

I would suggest that it is closer to what may be expected and off by a factor of about 15

However refering to the paper you posted earlier, we can reasonably reach the conclusion that population growth can and does fluctuate.

Jbuza wrote:This link is quite informative
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Pap ... /chap1.htm

There is no reasonable way to extrapolate the data. The further away from actual data points the less reliable the extrapolation becomes. Sort of akin to tracking the probable path of a hurricane.

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Jbuza wrote:On the first point I agree, and that is why I suggest that the average rate of growth over 2000 years would be more telling than using the rate of today.

Therein lies the problem. Using the growth rate for today doesn't give you an indication past growth rates (as you imply); however, assigning a standard growth rate of .04% based on the most data points, while seemingly a better approach, is in fact no better. Regardless of how many data points it's based on, coming up with a single value for growth portrays a linear increase in population when it is clearly not. To use a phrase recently used for another topic, using a linear approach to human population growth is like "comparing apples to oranges". That's like looking at neighborhood with one billionare and 99 unemployed folks and saying "the mean income of this neighborhood is $10,000,000"; sure, it may be true, but how useful is the information?

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Jbuza wrote:

thereal wrote: Using the growth rate for today doesn't give you an indication past growth rates (as you imply); however, assigning a standard growth rate of .04% based on the most data points, while seemingly a better approach, is in fact no better.

Not true at all of course it is better to take all the data. While I agree it is possible that population growth was radically different in the unknown past for some unknown reason, but it seems unlikely that there are forces that would alter population growth that we haven't encountered in the past 2000 years.

No-one is saying this, what is reasonably being said is that current numbers cannot be used to reliably estimate past numbers.

Jbuza wrote:IT is unlikely that population growth was any different in the unknown past than what we find for a average population growth today.

I must strongly disagree, based on the fact that average population growth fluctuates greatly in the data that we do have, so which average growth rate are you refering to? 1994? 1950?. None of the data shows a .4% growth rate which you proposed.
http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/o ... ldpop.html

Jbuza wrote:Again it is possible that it was different, but there is no reason to just assume that it is different to simply discount the evidence.

No one is assuming. The fact that rates are different from Nigeria to Canada alone suggests that growth rates are variable.

Jbuza wrote:The fact reamins that the studies indicate that a Global flood could have occoured, and a .4% growth rate puts the event close to the time period when Noah lived.

And the fact remains that human populations did not grow at .4%. ->.4% is an arbitrary number. It does not fit the evidence, only your presumptions. Population measurements don't seem to fit an equation.

A population will always grow exponentially. However due to limited resources the population reaches an equilibrium. This is expected in most cases. Usually only changes in the environment can change the equilibrium point. So it is much more reasonable to assume that the human population reached an equilibrium before the more recent advances in technology allowed an explosion in population.

You may want to read Thomas Malthus.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html

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Jbuza wrote:Bgood wrote
No-one is saying this, what is reasonably being said is that current numbers cannot be used to reliably estimate past numbers.

Why? because they come to the wrong conclusion? How come than are present numbers on radioactive decay realiable to estimate past numbers?

Simple, population growth rates are varied and inconsistent. See the table I provided. Decay rates are consistent and not varied.

Jbuza wrote:It is also reasonable to say that there is no reason to assume that the past numers are any different without some reason.

If current rates are inconsistent, than it is unreasonable to beleive that past rates were consistent.

Jbuza wrote:You can't just arbitrarily dismiss the indications of past population sizes based on all the evidence we are able to collect about growth rates.

Examine the evidence and tell me where the decision is arbitrary. All the data we have collected shows that population rates vary even between different nations.

Jbuza wrote:Even with large earthquakes and a giant tsunami population rates are expected to nearly keep pace.

Population rates cannot be extrapolated into the past as demonstrated above.

Jbuza wrote:What is the answer for the number of people that everything we know about population growth of humans indicate should be here if the history of man is 100,000 years. The numbers demonstrate that a world wide catostrophe must have occoured.

No the numbers do not indicate this. The numbers cannot tell us how long people have been in existance. This is due to the fact that growth rates are variable. Its simply a matter of positive and negative factors. The population growth is a function of these factors. Without negative factors the population will grow exponentially. Without positive factors the population will drop to zero. The actual growth in population is a result of the two. Over time if conditions remain stable an equalibrium will be achieved.

Imagine it like body weight.
Eating causes one to gain weight.
You can't look at just one side of the equation however because you will then falsly predict that an individual will gain weight indefinately.
The other side of the equation is that the individual burns calories through excersize. The amount of weight an individual gains on a given day can be calculated by taking the calories consumed and subtracting the calories burned. Much of the time the body is in a state of equilibrium.

And as an added note if you try to take your current growth rate and go backwards you will never predict the growth spurts which you may have experienced growing up.

Of course population studies are more complicated but this is what is happening with population.

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Jbuza wrote:

BGoodForGoodSake wrote: And as an added note if you try to take your current growth rate and go backwards you will never predict the growth spurts which you may have experienced growing up.

That's true, but if I analyze growth rates of millions of boys and incorporate them into some kind of an average, than I could create a growth chart and place it into thousands of pediatric offices across the country, and predict within some veriences and inconsistincies that there is a high degree of probability that an individual will plot close to that line.

There is only one history of population of the human race not millions.

Jbuza wrote:You seem to be ignoring the fact that the poulation growth estimates used to project into the past are based upon analyzing population growth of thousands of billions of people. And incorporate years and even decades that saw little or no growth due to the variety of negative factors on growth.

Are you saying there were periods of little or no growth?

Jbuza wrote:The study points out that due to the disease of man that God "sees" in Genesis that there was a great stunting of growth when he flooded the world and saved what good he could find in it.

How do the studies show this? Not the figures you provided us.

Jbuza wrote:I disagree with your summirazatio nof why population studies are junk. I agree they are varied and inconsistent. Your way our of wask if you think I am only looking at one side of the equation. All the negative factors and all the positive factors are blanaced by looking at long term growth.

Your long term growth figure came out to .4% which does not match any of the data we have.

Jbuza wrote:I could agree with what you were saying if I was taking an extraordinary year of growth and projecting into the past with it. This is not what is happening.

The numbers include the wide spread deaths during the fall of the roman empire, the bubonic plauge, numerous wars including two worldwide ones, hurricanes, erathquakes, volcanic eruptions, all manner of things. I can assure you an unbalanced equation that disreguards deaths would arrive at a much higher figure in both cases; that is not happening here.

Mind sharing the figures with the disasters and wars figured in. Because as I look through these posts I do not come across any figures remotely close to what you described above.

Jbuza wrote:I guess you want to beleive evolution so badly that you simply reject the problem and explain it away with no clear reasoning.

Why do you resort to this sort of rhetoric? You guessed wrong. I am only examining the data you provided critically, I would appreciate you keep this thread civil. The numbers you supplied was a flat growth rate based on a 4000 year history beginning with 8 people. You have not given any numbers factoring in what you claimed to have factored in. And you tell me that I have rejected imaginary figures because I blindly beleive in evolution?

"The numbers include the wide spread deaths during the fall of the roman empire, the bubonic plauge, numerous wars including two worldwide ones, hurricanes, erathquakes, volcanic eruptions, all manner of things."

Jbuza wrote:The numbers include the wide spread deaths during the fall of the roman empire, the bubonic plauge, numerous wars including two worldwide ones, hurricanes, erathquakes, volcanic eruptions, all manner of things.

What does this mean ? I thought your data started in 1500 ?

[I am not trying to convince Jbuza he is wrong; from other posts I know that is not going to happen. I just want him to examine the data and think about what it means before reaching a conclusion.]