I was curious.

Quote :

"This semi-scientific approach yields an estimate of about 106 billion births since the dawn of the human race."

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx

It should make you feel pretty small.

Though it doesn't make me feel small. I'm still special.

1/25/2010 8:02:51 PM

k

1/25/2010 8:03:08 PM

+/- 5 of course.

1/25/2010 8:03:52 PM

cool statistic, bro

1/25/2010 8:04:29 PM

hell's gettin' full

1/25/2010 8:36:38 PM

Quote :

"semi-scientific"

1/25/2010 8:37:24 PM

this research brought to you by [user]littlesmart[/user]

1/25/2010 8:38:06 PM

How scientific can you be when your whole figure is a projection based on a series of projections?

1/25/2010 8:48:52 PM

I'm a snowflake!

1/25/2010 8:52:44 PM

kind of a downer for the peeps that believe in reincarnation

1/25/2010 9:20:23 PM

50,000 ya seems a little late to me, depending on your definition of h. sapiens sapiens. It also ignores the near extinction events 70,000 ya and during the ice age 20-10,000 years ago, during which the world population might have dropped to as few as 10,000 mating individuals.



[Edited on January 25, 2010 at 9:32 PM. Reason : Note, chart shows geographical distributions, not population size.]

1/25/2010 9:30:48 PM

Wait, so history isnt going to remember me?

BUT I MADE THE CHURCH OF RUSSOLBRIEN!

1/25/2010 9:47:27 PM

About 0.03% of them came from Genghis Khan.

1/25/2010 9:54:29 PM

How many births since Cain and Abel?

1/25/2010 10:04:12 PM

Quote :

"It also ignores the near extinction events 70,000 ya and during the ice age 20-10,000 years ago, during which the world population might have dropped to as few as 10,000 mating individuals."

True. It's also hard to factor in things like the black death.

1/25/2010 10:39:18 PM

while looking at that chart thingy i thought at first it showed no humans in asia for a period of like .1 million years before homo sapiens

1/25/2010 10:48:47 PM

500 billion galaxies

space: 1
humanity: 0

1/25/2010 10:50:22 PM

It's also kind of BS to pick a specific point in time as the appearance of the first homo sapien, though I understand how that's due to the incomplete nature of the fossil record.

1/25/2010 11:02:32 PM

So, we haven't quite had 100 billions deaths yet, huh?

1/25/2010 11:06:05 PM

^ ?

106 billion births

6 billion alive

100 billion deaths

1/26/2010 3:32:06 AM

ya'll take a look at "homo erectus" on the chart.


and then tell me you're not a bunch of cocklookers.

1/26/2010 4:02:25 AM

Who you callin' homo?

1/26/2010 5:34:41 AM

There are remains of 100,000,000,000 humans on the planet!

1/26/2010 1:03:15 PM

^ not quite yet
There's almost 7 billion now.

106 billion births

6.7 billion alive

99.3 billion deaths

1/26/2010 1:09:06 PM

Wow, didn't know the numbers were exact

1/26/2010 1:12:31 PM

Well, they didn't say 105 or 107, so they must have been fairly certain it's 106.
And, if it were 106.5 or more, they would've rounded up to 107.
So, with over 6.5 billion now, well, you can do the math....

1/26/2010 1:25:38 PM

^ The article itself calls the figure a guesstimate.

Quote :

"This semi-scientific approach yields an estimate of about 106 billion births since the dawn of the human race. Clearly, the period 8000 B.C. to 1 A.D. is key to the magnitude of our number, but, unfortunately, little is known about that era. Some readers may disagree with some aspects — or perhaps nearly all aspects — of the table, but at least it offers one approach to this elusive issue. If we were to make any guess at all, it might be that our method underestimates the number of births to some degree. The assumption of constant population growth in the earlier period may underestimate the average population size at the time. And, of course, pushing the date of humanity's arrival on the planet before 50,000 B.C. would also raise the number, although perhaps not by terribly much."

1/26/2010 2:29:14 PM

I wonder what the population would be like if sex didn't feel good, like it was just something you did specifically to have kids and not recreationally

I'd guess there would be less than a billion people right now

[Edited on January 26, 2010 at 2:33 PM. Reason : x]

1/26/2010 2:32:55 PM

Quote :

"^ The article itself calls the figure a guesstimate."

HOLY FUCKIN SHIT... ALERT THE PRESSES!!!

1/26/2010 2:44:43 PM

if sex didnt feel good we would be extinct. the bitches would never allow it. selfish fuckin broads...

1/26/2010 3:02:05 PM

A good 10 billion of those people were sired by Bill Brasky.

1/26/2010 3:55:06 PM