Eye on the Ball

[flip]

http://www.scottmanning.com/content/yea ... estimates/

This is probably a more fair estimate of population.

[woodchip]

flip, If I read your post correctly, you are assuming some kind of progressive increase in mankind from 40,000 years ago to present. You seem to be forgetting simple things like disease and the elements reduced our average age to somewhere around 45 years as short as 160 years ago. In 1796 average life expectancy was around 24 years:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2003 ... fespan.php.

Improvements to health, neonatal care and dietary intake have all led to a increase in our average age and to the more rapid increase in the worlds population.

[flip]

I'm just trying to point out that common knowledge seems to point at man being on this planet a very short time on an evolutionary scale, with as little as 4 million in 10000 BC with genetic evidence to suggest a single point of origin, hence my argument of why I'm not a young earther but find corroborating evidence to support the biblical account of creation.
Here's my deal with young-earthers. You have a Genesis account numbering by days, then later on as more is revealed of the nature of God, he says a day is as a thousand years to him, so how could you trust anything he says as far as time goes? He says right here is a day, but that could be a thousand years. Heh, after that if God told me the world would end in 7 days, I'd take that with a grain of salt , but I would believe it was going to end.

[flip]

The hardest concept I'm trying to express is what of the stage of man right before we evolved into our current state. If a damn monkey can use a stick to fish for ants, I would think our closest ancestor had a lot more sense than we give them credit for. I see them depicted as grunting at each other, making knives to skin animals for clothes, making thread to weave clothes together ...etc innumerable amount of things. Over that time period of their transition of evolvement there should have been an immense amount of them. There's no evidence to suggest such a previous species with such intelligence ever existed. Over their time period I would think you would at least find a big pile of rocks shaped into a cave every 150 feet or so .

[woodchip]

The hardest concept I'm trying to express is what of the stage of man right before we evolved into our current state. If a damn monkey can use a stick to fish for ants, I would think our closest ancestor had a lot more sense than we give them credit for. I see them depicted as grunting at each other, making knives to skin animals for clothes, making thread to weave clothes together ...etc innumerable amount of things. Over that time period of their transition of evolvement there should have been an immense amount of them. There's no evidence to suggest such a previous species with such intelligence ever existed. Over their time period I would think you would at least find a big pile of rocks shaped into a cave every 150 feet or so .

Umm, early progenitors were using tools millions of years ago:

"Previously the oldest-known use of stone tools came from the nearby Gona region of Ethiopia, dating back to about 2.5 million years ago. That suggests that it was our more direct ancestors, members of our own genus Homo, that were the first to use tools."

"Researchers have found evidence that hominins - early human ancestors - used stone tools to cleave meat from animal bones more than 3.2 million years ago."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10938453

[CUDA]

Hrm we went from talking about Washington. to talking about Apes, I guess it's not too far of stretch. the Monkeys are still in control of our Government, and the Sheep keep putting them there

[Foil]

Nice segway back to the topic...

[flip]

Yeah I think we've peaked right along with the chimps .

[Top Gun]

Nice segway back to the topic...

I've ridden a Segway before. It was fun.

[callmeslick]

flip, If I read your post correctly, you are assuming some kind of progressive increase in mankind from 40,000 years ago to present. You seem to be forgetting simple things like disease and the elements reduced our average age to somewhere around 45 years as short as 160 years ago. In 1796 average life expectancy was around 24 years:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2003 ... fespan.php.

Improvements to health, neonatal care and dietary intake have all led to a increase in our average age and to the more rapid increase in the worlds population.

thank you Woodchip, for the obvious contributing factors. Also, within the quoted text is genetic evidence of a larger scale group mutation, rather that anything approaching all humans descending from a single pair of ancestors, which is key to the whole 8000 year argument.

[flip]

8000 years was a generalization. I'd be content settling on 2.5 million years ago and genetic evidence that suggests a single point of origin. That actually gives more weight to my argument although other evidence points to much lesser time.

[callmeslick]

what genetic evidence is there for a single point of origin? Almost everything I've read in the past 10 or more years indicates a sort of widespread process spread over a rather large geographic area.

[flip]

Almost everything I've read in the past 10 or more years indicates a sort of widespread process spread over a rather large geographic area.

If this were the case, there should be even more numbers.

[Top Gun]

Almost everything I've read in the past 10 or more years indicates a sort of widespread process spread over a rather large geographic area.

If this were the case, there should be even more numbers.

Why?

[flip]

Reproduction.

[Top Gun]

Reproduction is always mitigated by mortality. It's basic biology. If you took a single-celled bacteria and had it divide in two every twenty minutes, and then the resulting pair divide twenty minutes afterwards, in 48 hours you'd have a bacterial colony approximately the size of the Earth. Obviously, this would never happen in real life, as the bacteria would consume all available resources and start to die off long before they reached that size. In the same way, even up until the turn of the last century, infant mortality rates among humans were extremely high, and life expectancies were comparatively low. Those early hominids didn't live all that long, and many of their children died young. As a result, their population grew only at a slow rate. It's only with the advent of modern medicine and agricultural practices that we've seen the human population skyrocket.

[flip]

The census charts from 12 different agencies all show population increasing at a steady and sharp rate over the last 15000 years or so. By best guess estimates

[Top Gun]

It's not all that sharp of a rate, and 15,000 years isn't all that long of a time scale. Most notably, it's after the peak of the most recent Ice Age, which certainly would have put a significant damper on growth. That's just one example of why you can't just look at the slope of that population line and extend it backwards indefinitely...there are far too many environmental events that can create significant fluctuations (generally drops) in the population at any given time.

Seriously, I'd recommend taking a basic biology course if you ever get the chance, or at least picking up a book or two at your local library. I think it'd really help you get a handle on how populations work the way they do.

[flip]

Yeah your right, way too many variables to be sure .

[woodchip]

The census charts from 12 different agencies all show population increasing at a steady and sharp rate over the last 15000 years or so. By best guess estimates

Just what census agencies were around 15,000 years ago ? 10,0000 years ago?

[null0010]

The census charts from 12 different agencies all show population increasing at a steady and sharp rate over the last 15000 years or so. By best guess estimates

Just what census agencies were around 15,000 years ago ? 10,0000 years ago?

The Illuminati, of course.

[flip]

Exactly why I said "best guess estimates". Which is about 90% of science it seems today. All 12 of those census agencies that were doing the best they could to guess population growth, are real close to agreeing with each other.

[Top Gun]

Exactly why I said "best guess estimates". Which is about 90% of science it seems today.

That's not science "today"...you're pretty much describing the scientific method in general. You look at some data and come up with a hypothesis to explain that data. You then test your hypothesis, either by direct experimentation or gathering more data from more sources. If your hypothesis seems to hold up, you keep testing it and building on it...if not, you try something else. In cases like the human population thousands of years ago, where there's little to no direct evidence, that "best guess" is pretty much all we can go on...but by combining that evidence with what we know about population growth, that "guess" can often be a fairly accurate one.

[Jeff250]

Flip, I can't tell if you're still being serious or joking at this point, but as a general rule, you shouldn't dismiss something simply because you don't understand it.

[flip]

Good counter-argument. I must be stupid because no one can explain the obvious lack of numbers in population and therefore their guesses are much more superior to my guesses.

[Top Gun]

...flip, we've already explained how your thought process about this is incorrect. I can't really help it if you're ignoring what I'm saying. This "lack of numbers" you're talking about is a complete fallacy. Like I said before, I really think you need to do some reading on basic biology, because I think you're just going on "gut instinct" alone, and that's often the fastest way to a completely-illogical conclusion.

[flip]

There are other theories to explain the "lack" of numbers in population. Again, "best guess estimates" but interesting that this genetic evidence here highly suggests a common ancestor.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has postulated that human mitochondrial DNA (inherited only from one's mother) and Y chromosome DNA (from one's father) show coalescence at around 140,000 and 60,000 years ago respectively. In other words, all living humans' female line ancestry trace back to a single female (Mitochondrial Eve) at around 140,000 years ago. Via the male line, all humans can trace their ancestry back to a single male (Y-chromosomal Adam) at around 60,000 to 90,000 years ago.[3]

This is consistent with the Toba catastrophe theory which suggests that a bottleneck of the human population occurred c. 70,000 years ago, proposing that the human population was reduced to perhaps 15,000 individuals[4] when the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia erupted and triggered a major environmental change. The theory is based on geological evidences of sudden climate change and on coalescence evidences of some genes (including mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome and some nuclear genes)[5] and the relatively low level of genetic variation with humans.[4]

[callmeslick]

Almost everything I've read in the past 10 or more years indicates a sort of widespread process spread over a rather large geographic area.

If this were the case, there should be even more numbers.

why? Ooops! That question got dealt with quite nicely, I see. Good job, all!

[Top Gun]

...flip, that quote meshes exactly with what I've been saying. I'm well-aware of the Toba catastrophe theory; it was one of the "environmental effects" i mentioned earlier.

[flip]

Heh, ok. Well those lack of numbers and those genetic tests that seem to not only suggest single point of origin but even a common ancestor is a few of the reasons why I'm not a young earth creationist but still believe in creation. That's not even to get into disputes about the validity of carbon dating and solid state theories. Which I won't. I only gave 2 reasons initially I felt supported the creation account. It took all this time to just simply agree that there very could possibly be something described as a population bottleneck and disagree as to why. I say I believe in a single point of origin and a young history of man and offer up data to support it. As far as I can tell, you were disagreeing to even that possibilty until I offered one to you. I say there was no bottleneck and that man was created rather recently compared to the universe, you say bottleneck. This is how science is also. 2 different people with 2 totally different belief systems interpreting the same data with their prejudice. A precarious process at best.

[callmeslick]

Flip, two things come to mind, reading your last post:
1. Science is NOT a belief system. In fact, the keystone of science is that nothing is certain until proven
beyond doubt. Thus, all 'beliefs' are subject to ongoing revision.

2. I am sure glad you didn't bring up the creationist claims about carbon dating, because to be anywhere
close to any young-earth models, carbon-14 decay calculations would have to be off by several orders
of magnitude, which any chemist will inform you is ludicrous to even suggest.

[Top Gun]

Yeah, flip, what you're describing is not "science" at all. Not to get personal or anything, but what sort of science education did you receive at the grade/high school level?

[flip]

Again what has that to do with a lack of numbers and a single point of origin which supports my position of the creation account? Which keeps getting passed over to discuss my education level. Lol.

[Ferno]

Again what has that to do with a lack of numbers and a single point of origin which supports my position of the creation account?

everything.

[flip]

How? So far all I've said is that there should be more numbers and genetic evidence suggests single point of origin AND ancestor. That's it. Simple as that. What do I get in return? Nothing, except I'm obviously uneducated. Friggin hilarious considering nothing I've actually said is in dispute anymore. So far your side has offered no other explanation except that I must be a dumbass and I bet you still don't see that. Good luck educating the masses and removing their superstitions if all you have is one-liners, quips and a superiority complex that offers nothing of substance.

[woodchip]

flip, if there was a single point why then was there Cro Magnon and Neanderthal coexisting at same time? If your single point creationist theory would hold true we should of only have seen Cro Magnon and not Neanderthal. Or did God create 2 different species only to eliminate one?

edit spelling

[flip]

Yes exactly. If "my" single point creationists theory is correct, we would expect to see DNA evidence suggest a common ancestor and a single point of origin and a relatively small population initially.

EDIT: Which they do.

[woodchip]

Depending on how far back in time one wants to look, one can always find a single point originator. Doesn't mean it proves creationist theory. In other word, if god created man from the start then we should not expect to look back and see a small rat like mammal as the father of all mammals... including man.

[flip]

If evolution were true, I would expect the whole species to evolve over time as Slick and TopGun suggested earlier, and not just one individual. To be just one individual would suggest a rapid change whereas if a whole species wee to evolve, it would evolve together. I would also think that in the time it would take the one species to evolve it would build greater and greater numbers. As you say, cro-magnum and neanderthal are supposed to be successions of each other. Through all those steps and time and as you say the norm is to think initially from a single point, there should have been great numbers to evolve as we settled into our final form. Or does everyone here think we are still evolving physically to adapt to our envronment?

[Top Gun]

If evolution were true, I would expect the whole species to evolve over time as Slick and TopGun suggested earlier, and not just one individual. To be just one individual would suggest a rapid change whereas if a whole species wee to evolve, it would evolve together. I would also think that in the time it would take the one species to evolve it would build greater and greater numbers. As you say, cro-magnum and neanderthal are supposed to be successions of each other. Through all those steps and time and as you say the norm is to think initially from a single point, there should have been great numbers to evolve as we settled into our final form. Or does everyone here think we are still evolving physically to adapt to our envronment?

I hate to say this, flip, but pretty much everything you're stating here about how evolution works is wrong. Species do evolve over time, but their evolution doesn't necessarily have a direct connection with their population cap. Individuals better adapted to their environment have greater survivability and are able to pass their favorable traits to their offspring, but that doesn't mean that the whole species magically explodes in population. No, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals weren't successive species, but instead co-existed for more than ten thousand years; they're still debate as to how peaceful that co-existence may have been. And yes, human beings are still evolving, but the catch is that we've largely taken control of our own evolution by virtue of our modern society...for instance, we're able to mitigate the effects of genetic diseases that would have been a death sentence less than a century ago. There's also the consideration that individual traits which are no longer useful take time to disappear; this is why humans still have an appendix, and why we still readily store excess fat, even though doing so causes obesity issues on a first-world diet.