To be fair Ken Ham does not either.

Both have stated how many people would be on the Earth if it is older than 6000 years or if there were more than 8 people on Earth 4400 years ago.

They then try to say that humans reproduce exponentially. For those that haven’t heard that term (Bigdog and 9tails perhaps) that means if I have 2 today and 4 tomorrow I will have 8 the next day and then 16. I seem to recall the two posters I mentioned using that same type of reproduction levels to explain how the population of both humans and animals recovered from the flood.

Maybe we can use some real world examples to show that would play out. How about alligators?

In 1970, there were 300 alligators at Cape Canaveral. I know because I was just there and they have a large exhibit on how many endangered species live there in the protected area of Merritt Island. In 1980, there were 1500 alligators. Given that level of growth how many alligators would there be next year (2010)? 187500. But then numbers like that are tossed out as “proof” man can’t be more than a few thousand years old or animals haven’t dropped to those low levels.

Maybe you think it is wrong to use that animal species. We could use humans. Thanks to the US Constitution, we have census records for every decade from 1790 until 2000 and will have another next year. In 1790, there were 3.93 million Americans. In 1890, there were 62.98 million Americans. Given that exponential rate of growth, how many will there be in 2010? Not too many, just 1.758 BILLION.

You see you can only have three types of curves with an exponential growth rate. Steady k=0, explosion k>0, and extinction k<0. That is why you can only use it for replicating systems like viruses and then only in resource rich environments such as a Petri dish. It ends when the waste gets to be too much or the food is gone. Animals don’t behave that way because it is not like you sit in a tub of food and reproduce until you drown in your own excrement.

So what explains rapid population growth seen in models in text books? If you notice the large increases are actually something known as punctuated equilibrium. You see population tends to be more of a logistic curve and approaches a population limit for an area. You see slow growth above that as the area tends to grow and stable populations becomes more efficient which is really just the population limit edging up.

Then something strange happens. The advent of farming, the industrial revolution, refrigeration, medicine, or whatever suddenly makes it possible for larger populations to be supported in a given area. That simply means the point of equilibrium raises higher.

That is far different than what is put forward by others. If you want me to show the math I can do that for you.