Exactly my point!

Population growth Kept in check, by natural death, and predation.
In humans case, the only real predator we have is usually another human.

Originally posted by AD5673
The Earth cant be a billion years old because there would be billions of humans on Earth. In 1900 there were about 1 billion people on Earth. One hundred years later it is nearly 10 billion people on Earth. If humanity is eve maybe 40,000 years old there would be nearly 60-100 billion people on Earth. I dont have a link or anything i just thought this up in my head about the Earth's population. What do you people think?

the Earth isn't hat old but for a different reason. the sun puts out a certain amount of energy per year not sure of the exact amount though. as a result it is shrinking in size. Scientist have work this problem backwards and they have concluded the following: 100,000 years ago the sun would have been so large that our seas would be at boiling point constantly. At 1 million years ago the diameter of the sun would have engulfed the planet mars. So the earth is not that old.

Originally posted by Graystar
the Earth isn't hat old but for a different reason. the sun puts out a certain amount of energy per year not sure of the exact amount though. as a result it is shrinking in size.

That concept's been thoroughly debunked more than once, I'm afraid.

The sun doesn't actually "burn up." It changes hydrogen into helium (and later into other elements.) The changes only occur in the OUTER shell of the sun. We do see it grow and shrink to some degree on a 70 year cycle. But it isn't continuously shrinking, and we have a lot of data to prove that.

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by Graystar
the Earth isn't hat old but for a different reason. the sun puts out a certain amount of energy per year not sure of the exact amount though. as a result it is shrinking in size.

That concept's been thoroughly debunked more than once, I'm afraid.

The sun doesn't actually "burn up." It changes hydrogen into helium (and later into other elements.) The changes only occur in the OUTER shell of the sun. We do see it grow and shrink to some degree on a 70 year cycle. But it isn't continuously shrinking, and we have a lot of data to prove that.

So what your saying is Matter is turned into energy and yet the matter which became the energy remains. That Doesnt make sence!

So lets just throw a way the second law of thermo dynamics while we are at it.

[edit on 9-7-2004 by Graystar]

So what your saying is Matter is turned into energy and yet the matter which became the energy remains. That Doesnt make sence!

lol, this guy doesn't have a clue! It's called nuclear fusion chap! Where u from buddy? I hazard a guess and say america..... ?

When two atomic nuclei fuse, they release a small portion of their atomic mass as energy, and leave behind a slightly lighter element made up of the two. For example, 2 hydrogen (deuterium to be precise, an isotope of hydrogen) nuclei fuse, they release some of their mass as energy, whilst the remaining mass combines to form an isotope of helium. Once all the hydrogen is used up, the fusion process will use up the next heaviest element and so on. The sun will continue using fuel in this manner until most of the fuel has been converted all the way to iron, at which point the amount of energy required to maintain the reaction is more than is being produced by fusion. This is where the sun goes tits up, and dies a horrible sunny death.

Originally posted by stumason

lol, this guy doesn't have a clue! It's called nuclear fusion chap! Where u from buddy? I hazard a guess and say america..... ?

Hazard a guess!? In spite of our defects we are still the greatest nation on the face of the earth, chap!

The population is only as high as it is now because of a bettter knowledge of the world we live in. We live to a longer age due to better medical facilities to combat diseases which would of killed people in the past. While there are still many wars there are nowhere near as many as there were in the past.

Fact is people died earlier and in greater numbers then they do today. It wasn't sustainable to have a huge population because there wouldn't be enough resources to support them unlike now where we fully utilise all our resources to support the population. And in countries where there are little resources for a huge population we can at least sustain life through medical care which has been lacking until the last few centuries.

Threadstarter, Some excellent points have been posted here both for an against your theory. here is a simple one which seems to indicate that regarless the age of earth, there would still not be a 100 billion folk here today.
You would agree that the earth is of finite size yes? Also you would agree than within a finite biosphere (earth) there must be a finite food source, I.E
the oceans and landmass. within those two parts there is also a finite mass of food source, ie, not all the landmass is (a) habitable (b) fertile,
for instance, you cannot grow much in the desert, nor (yet) farm the depths of the sea.
With that in mind, you also add other factors such as: Not all avail farmable landmass is devoted to food production, rather (a)we build on it (b) we farm cattle etc) while cattle is a food source, you can find if you look that if these cattle used lands were used to grow food instead, we could likly feed the curent world population given decent distribution methods.
However given our current population, touted at 6.4 billion, continues to grow at its current rate (theoretically) then there may be 12 billion within 20 years, 20 billion within 50 years! (remember this is theoretical onlyand innacurate for many reasons already stated by others)
Now consider The extent of global famine within the last 100 years, how many died? In our theoretical growth pattern birth rates will drop due to malnutrition, and death rates increase for thesame reason. In short, there would never be many more people than there is today, even if the earth was a trillion yrs old, simply because the earth cannot feed that many.
If i have 2 rabbits contained on 10 acres of land, and they breed and have 10 babys, thats 12 rabbits. They will survive for a while because the babys dont eat as much grass as adults, however while feeding on avail grass they will continue to grow and eat more exponentially while avail grass remains. Unfortunatly they will eat faster than grass grows wont they. Eventually there sitting in a dry dusty grassless 10 acres and they starve to death. Perhaps half of them dies becoming to weak to eat what little grass is growing. Then the other 6 compete for what is left, that is given they havent bred more hungry bunnies in the meantime. Eventually though, the new babys will not survive due to malnutrition (higher deathrates) and the remaining rabbits will not breed , also due to loss of condition I.E malnutrition. Limited growth rate. Eventually youll be left with
just two strong bunnys in your 10 acre enclosure. This is because 10 acres cannot support more bunnies. If they breed, the cycle starts again, with the same result.
On a global scale its the same, finite resources = finite population.

Whenever I read some of these posts, I reflect on the state of the public schools in the United States and wonder why anyone would be against tuition vouchers and freedom-of-choice schools.

Originally posted by AD5673
Yes i know what the black plauge is and what the flu is! But the fossils thing you have absolutly no proof that there are millions of years old! That fossil would probably not even last a million years

Hello CARBON DATING! Dinosour fassils are like 800 milllion years old and there still here. And to all the wars limiting population you all forgot about Genocide.

Let's, in the late 1490's and early 1500's extensive exploration was done upon two giant land masses inhabbited at the time by only several hundred thousand stone age people, 1600-1800 we see an increase in Immigration to these two giant land masses. Starting at the begining of the 1900's there is another increase of immigrants pouring into these countries at all time highs and the expected life span was at about 45 years, due to increase in pollution and medical breakthroughs in about 50 years we see the life expectancy soar to about 60-70. Wonder what all this could mean? Maybe nothing, maybe something.

If you are truly searching for the truth you must enter into the information with no judgment. including religious judgments.

Note: even Biblical Scholar's Admit that what they count for a "year" in the bible, can range anywhere from 1-7000 years.

In Mainstream and abstract science it is said (the evidence is in EVERYONE's D.N.A) that we can be tracked back to one female in africa roughly 90,000-120,000 years ago when the "human race" was broken down to one group.

You Must also take into Your calculations that Humans do not have a natural defensive mechanism, Making us the best target on the planet for anything that has an Offencive mechanism + Eats meat!

Well AD5673, it just makes me shake my head when people comment on things beyond thier expertise. It always upset me when a biologist says this is what I think is happening in the subsurface of the earth. Well I am no biologist and make no comments on how things happen within the living tissue. It is obvious that you as well as some others have no concept of the how rocks are formed, eroded/weathered, and (re)deposited via sedimentation or igneous mechanisms. There are several methods to date the earth and all put it around 5.5 billion years old. The human population does not control the age of the earth but rather the sun. When the sun finally goes nova, the earth will be engulfed and will be no more in approximately 10 billion yrs if I recall correctly.

pfft okay well its simple the earth isnt that old no one will agree til we all are in heaven and God tells us all jeeze then people will feel bad for think the earth was soo old

First, there was nothing on earth. Then, bacteria, then small, microscopic marine life, then it evolved into invertabrets, then into fish, and so on, until after millions of years, it branched into reptiles, amphibions, avions, fish, and mammals. During those millions of years, there were also mass extinctions.

sorry dude you must have a lot of faith to believe all that i just cant think in my head how all that really could happen but you and everyone who believes that is the case clearly has a huge amount of faith but in reality it is just a security blanket there was never a bunch of Goo and bacteria then it all came to this day where some guy invented this computer and all this no no the world and life if a lot more complicated

It's called mutations love. it's when a gene is either missing some protiens, or has extra protiens, and is effected, eventually effecting the organism, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.

Where did you get that answer. Do have a source?

Are you talking to me idle_rocker?