Young-Earth Human Population Models


CLAIM: Human population growth demonstrates a young earth. Less than 0.5% per annum growth from six people 4500 years ago would produce today’s population (with the population doubling roughly once every 150 years). Using this same figure, there should be 1.2x10^26 humans on Earth if we have existed for even one million years. Where are all of evolution's missing people? (Answers in Genesis, n.d.) (Batten, 2019) (Baugh, 1999, p.118-119) (Baugh & Wilson, 1992, p.133-134) (Ferrel, 2006, p.156-157) (Hovind, 2003, 1:06:39-1:11:40) (Miller, 2019) (Petersen, 2012, p.55) (Thomas et al., 2020, p.7-9)  (Tomkins, 2019) (Wieland, 2021, p.23)

RESPONSE: The main problem with this idea is that 1.). populations do not increase in uniform rates, and 2.) a population of 6 individuals doubling every 150 years is not realistic to either the secular or young-Earth timeline.

POPULATION INCREASE IS NOT UNIFORM
There's no reason to assume a 0.5% per annum growth rate unless you've got a starting/ending figure in mind and are trying to do the math backwards to get a desired result. Populations are often decimated by disease, wars, and famines, causing the rate to drop or alter. For example, the rate of population growth over the last 100,000 years has been closer to 0.027%, around 0.512% for the last 50,000 years, and around 0.1227% between 1000 and 1800 CE. (American Museum of Natural History, 2023; Atlas of Humanity, 2016; Haub, 1995; Isaak, 2006) These fluctuating and lower rates reflect long periods of minimal growth, punctuated by significant increases during agricultural and industrial revolutions, which is why there are no "missing people" in deep time estimates. Given these realities and uncertainties in early population estimates, a steady or constant growth rate across all time can't be reliably assumed or asserted.

TIMELINE INCONSISTENCIES
The argument for a 0.5% per annum growth rate for Noah's sons and their wives post-Flood contradicts key areas of the wider young-Earth creationist timeline, meaning that both cannot be true at the same time. For example, Answers in Genesis estimates that the Flood occurred around 2348 BCE, and the Tower of Babel dispersion occurred approximately 100 years later around 2248 BCE. (Hodge, 2010; Wright, 2012) Genesis 10 lists at least 78 families that dispersed from Babel, and Answers in Genesis provides a rough estimate that the Babel population could have been anywhere between 400 individuals and possibly over a thousand, depending on the number of children each family had. (Answers in Genesis, 2017) Being as generous as possible, if the population had increased from 6 to 500 in 100 years, the growth rate per year would have been around 4.17%, and if it had increased to 1000 in the same time, then it would have been around 4.83%. These rates not only do not fit with the uniform 0.5% figure, but are exceptionally high compared to historical norms. Using the 0.5% figure, Noah's sons and their wives would have produced a world population of barely 15 people in the 100 years between the Flood and the Babel dispersion, far less than the Bible records assuming the generations are to be taken as direct parent-child lineages. Another example would include the Exodus from Egypt - according to Numbers 1:45-46, which details a census taken by Moses just over a year after Israel left Egypt, the post-Exodus population of Israel held over 600,000 men, not counting the women and children which would likely drive the population well over 1,000,000 individuals. If the Exodus occurred sometime in the middle of the second century BCE, then the world population would only be around 1,000 individuals if the population had been doubling every 150 years since the Flood. (Isaacs, 2006)

Population records outside of the Bible also render the 0.5% estimate invalid. When Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 BCE, his army was recorded as numbering over 2,000,000 men, when the 0.5% figure would predict a world population of just under 90,000 individuals. (Isaak, 2006; Maurice, 2013) During the Classical period of Athens, Greece, the population was recorded as being between 350,000 and 610,000, while the 0.5% figure predicts a world population of around 25,000 individuals. (World Population Review, 2024) During China's Han Dynasty in 2 CE, an accurate census was taken that recorded 57.67 million people living in 12.36 million households, while the 0.5% figure predicts a world population of just under 200,000 individuals. (Office for National Statistics, 2016)

No matter how you slice it, arbitrarily holding to a 0.5% annual growth rate for the human population does nothing to disprove evolutionary timelines or help the young-Earth argument, and in fact contradicts and inhibits it.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

American Museum of Natural History (2023, August) Human Population Through Time.



Baud2 Bits. (2013, August 28) Ken Ham's Ice Age: The Elephant In the Room [Video]. YouTube.

Baud2 Bits. (2013, February 19) Noah's Ark and Population Growth [Video].YouTube

Hadfield, P. [potholer54]. (2012, February 2) Do population and magnetic fields prove a young Earth? [Video]. YouTube.

Haub, C. (1995) How many people have ever lived on earth? Population Today, 23(2), 4-5.

Hodge, B. (2010, August 19) Was the Tower of Babel Dispersion a Real Event? Answers in Genesis.

Isaak, M. (2006) CB620: Population growth. Index to Creationist Claims.

Maurice, F. (2013) The Size of the Army of Xerxes in the Invasion of Greece 480 B.C. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 50(2), 210-235.

Milne, D. H. (1984) Creationists, Population Growth, Bunnies, and the Great Pyramid. Creation/Evolution Journal, 4(4).

Monroe, J. S. (1986) More on Population Growth and Creationism. Creation/Evolution Journal, 6(2).

Office for National Statistics (2016, January 18) Census-taking in the ancient world.

Reed, T. [Tony Reed] (January 1, 2016) How Creationism Taught Me Real Science 30 Human Population Growth [Video]. YouTube.

World Population Review (2024) Athens, Greece Population 2024.

Wright, D. (2012, March 9) Timeline for the Flood. Answers in Genesis.

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