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Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 6:37 pm
you look at the charts, in the last 300 years, population has gone from a billion to 7 billion.
but homonids have been around about 200,000 years... why did population levels stay so flat for so long?
PS if you're about to post a reply and your response is going to be negative, improper, average, odd, obtuse, irrational, an argument, might change the focus, going off at a tangent or just mean ... go and find a maths forum to post on instead, they'll love you !!
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 6:48 pm
disease
contaminated water
predators (human and otherwise)
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 6:59 pm
(This post was last modified: December 14, 2014 at 7:02 pm by Tombochan.)
Generally longer lifespans, hence more generations alive concurrently partly accounts for logarithmic increases.
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:00 pm
What vorlon said.
Additionally, population is a geometric progression. Once predation and disease were removed as limiting factors, human population skyrockets. We are the planet-wide analogy of the rabbits in Australia.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:10 pm
But there were so many violent wars... is that the reason?
PS if you're about to post a reply and your response is going to be negative, improper, average, odd, obtuse, irrational, an argument, might change the focus, going off at a tangent or just mean ... go and find a maths forum to post on instead, they'll love you !!
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:22 pm
(December 14, 2014 at 7:10 pm)lifesagift Wrote: But there were so many violent wars... is that the reason?
No. Wars are a pretty insignificant factor in reducing population growth. Disease is much, MUCH more important. By way of example, the Spanish Flu epidemic of WWI killed (best estimates) 50-100 million people, while military casualties were around 8-10 million.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:22 pm
(December 14, 2014 at 7:10 pm)lifesagift Wrote: But there were so many violent wars... is that the reason?
55 million people died in WW2, by somewhat conservative estimates. That's a tiny percentage of the human population, even 70 years ago.
And those numbers were easily replaced by the boom after the war.
Dying to live, living to die.
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:26 pm
In WWI and WWII there were millions of casualties which caused barely a blip in the population growth.
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:27 pm
Surely life expectancy is key? and number of offspring?
PS if you're about to post a reply and your response is going to be negative, improper, average, odd, obtuse, irrational, an argument, might change the focus, going off at a tangent or just mean ... go and find a maths forum to post on instead, they'll love you !!
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RE: Population boom
December 14, 2014 at 7:30 pm
(This post was last modified: December 14, 2014 at 7:33 pm by Tombochan.)
@Beccs: I have only my mobile to use in these forums and cannot check for new posts before making my own, so it often happens that I'll arrive a dollar late and a dollar short. Your post was better stated than mine anyway. Lol
@lifesagift: those issues were already adressed.
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