Historical population question

[Dogbrain]

Great link, though I'm disappointed the author didn't include Constantinople, which was easily the largest city in Europe during much of the Middle Ages.

That's because Sjohn was modeling feudal culture, and nobody could ever reasonably consider Constantinople nor its empire "feudal".

 

[tbitonti]

AC Clark counts 100 billion dead people

I'm remembering that Arthor C. Clark has used the figure
of 100 billion dead people (100,000,000,000) in his writing.

He wrote this about 30 years ago.

 

[orsal]

Assuming there's been 5 million people in the world since 8000BC and that a generation is 25 years that would be 1.6 Billion from 8000BC to 1AD.

Assuming there's been 150 million people in the world since 1AD to 2000AD with again a 25 year average lifespan, that's 13.6 Billion.

There's a big difference between a generation (time from birth until reproduction) and lifespan (time from birth until death). We're counting people, not praying mantises.

 

[jgbrowning]

There's a big difference between a generation (time from birth until reproduction) and lifespan (time from birth until death). We're counting people, not praying mantises.

Yep.

joe b.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Assuming a stable population, life expectancy rather than generation length is the defining quantity for "how many deaths are there in a period of X years" - roughly, it will be the length of time divided by the life expectancy times the steady-state population.
So a population of 10,000 with a life expectancy of 40 will have 100,000 deaths over a period of 400 years.
Generation length, reproductive rate, and average life expectancy (including deaths from infant mortality, which are often a substantial drag on life expectancy) are all needed to determine the rate of growth. But we have side-stepped that by assuming a steady-state population for simplicity.

 

[storyguide3]

So on the basis of this analysis, I wouldn't be surprised to learn either way. Now I have read the claim, made earlier in this thread, that there are in fact more people currently alive. I can't vouch for it; I don't know how reliable the data on which it was based are. But I don't see any reason to disbelieve it, since it is (on the basis of the above) plausible, and I've never seen anybody make the contrary claim.

I knew that I had read something about the "more people alive now than have gone before" factoid disputed somewhere recently. And this link would be where:
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm

They have footnotes at the bottom of the page that lead to the sources used for the piece.

 

[orsal]

I knew that I had read something about the "more people alive now than have gone before" factoid disputed somewhere recently. And this link would be where:
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm

They have footnotes at the bottom of the page that lead to the sources used for the piece.

Thanks for the reference. Snopes is pretty reliable.

Of course, if people who like to make the claim would just change "since the emergence of the human race" to "in the past 4000 years", it would (according to snopes.com) be true, and only a little less surprising than the incorrect version.