95% of all the people that have ever lived...

[imamartian]

I read somewhere recently that apparently, 95% of all the people that have ever lived... are alive today...

Sounds impressive, but how can it be true?

If you take an average across the globe of 4 children per couple, then you take the current population to be 100... then that's 50 parents to 'own' those 100, and 25 to 'own' that 50, of which maybe 12 are still alive......

So we have 175 people still alive and 13 dead..

The is only 93%.... then you have to add on ALL the people that have ever lived before.... all those the lived and died through the great war... all their parents and kids, all those that lived through Hiroshima etc etc etc ...

It can't be a true statement can it?

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

Does this include the living dead?
It's estimated that a total of 106 billion people have been born since the creation.

 

[dextrous]

Sounds plausable - will have a look into it tomorrow

 

[Alastairreid]

Estimates are that between 69 billion and 110 billion people have populated the earth since about one million years ago.


Assuming that we start counting from about 55,000 B.C. , the time when modern homo sapiens appeared on the earth (not from 1,700,000 B.C., when the ancestors of Homo sapiens appeared, or several million years ago hominids were present), talking into account that all population data are a rough estimate, and assuming a constant growth rate applied to each period up to modern times, it has been estimated that a total of 106 billion people have been born since the dawn of the human race.

and the earths current population as of 7th feb 2010 6,801,200,000

 

[dextrous]

Like I said, sounds implausable

 

[imamartian]

Estimates are that between 69 billion and 110 billion people have populated the earth since about one million years ago.


Assuming that we start counting from about 55,000 B.C. , the time when modern homo sapiens appeared on the earth (not from 1,700,000 B.C., when the ancestors of Homo sapiens appeared, or several million years ago hominids were present), talking into account that all population data are a rough estimate, and assuming a constant growth rate applied to each period up to modern times, it has been estimated that a total of 106 billion people have been born since the dawn of the human race.

and the earths current population as of 7th feb 2010 6,801,200,000

and joe90

Alastair... i'm very confused... you're quoting a post that(to me) isn't there!! is it someone whose got me on ignore?

bizarre!

 

[Alastairreid]

@ imamartian, quoted from wikipedia

 

[imamartian]

@ imamartian, quoted from wikipedia

Gee thanks ... didn't realise you could do that !

 

[Alastairreid]

copy, quote, paste.

dont want to be accused of plagarism

 

[securespark]

Does this include the living dead?
It's estimated that a total of 106 billion people have been born since the creation.

Since the creation of what?

 

[dextrous]

Does this include the living dead?
It's estimated that a total of 106 billion people have been born since the creation.

Since the creation of what?

Since the creation of this post

 

[BOB D.O.L.E]

I read somewhere recently that apparently, 95% of all the people that have ever lived... are alive today...

Sounds impressive, but how can it be true?

If you take an average across the globe of 4 children per couple, then you take the current population to be 100... then that's 50 parents to 'own' those 100, and 25 to 'own' that 50, of which maybe 12 are still alive......

So we have 175 people still alive and 13 dead..

The is only 93%.... then you have to add on ALL the people that have ever lived before.... all those the lived and died through the great war... all their parents and kids, all those that lived through Hiroshima etc etc etc ...

It can't be a true statement can it?

And the good news it all ends in 2012
cant wait it will be the cure for everything
zero unemployment
zero everything heee heee ho

 

[joe-90]

... and when the oil runs out 4 billion of them will starve.

 

[Donkmeister]

I heard that there's about the same number of people alive today than have ever died.

Here's a simple test.

In 1800, there were 1Bn people alive. By 1900, those people were, more or less, all dead.

In 1900, the population of the world was 1.6Bn. By 2010, those people were all dead. Well, not entirely. There are currently ~70 people alive who are 110+ years old.

Anyway, that's 2.6Bn dead people right there. As the world population is about 7Bn today, the 95% "fact" can't be true.

 

[Homesafe]

It's just a martian theory! dey been watching too much attenborough