How is it that 2 million years ago there were only 1 million people on the planet?

Question

and then a million years later there is still only 1 million people?

Answer 1

Consider the compound interest formulate with a rate of 5%.  You apply that to the human population, use 2 as the original population, replace the interest rate with reproductive rate, and within 300 years you get a million people.

Answer 2

War, Rape, and s***s.

Answer 3

because the rate of births and deaths remain even with each other for a long time due to many factors

Answer 4

First the projected numbers are wild guesses.  The number of fossils available is extremely small and the number of places with appropriate exposures of fossils is also small.  Trying to guess how many people lived a million or 2 million years ago is therefore impractical and a wild guess based on almost no evidence.  If a species is limited to a particular niche that doesn't favor high populations per square mile and if the species is limited to a particular range, that would limit the populations but both of these scenarios cannot be ascertained with the available evidence.  I also don't think we could call somthing that lived 2 million years ago, people, even if they are our direct ancestor.

Answer 5

Jim Z stated it perfectly.  The wild guesses are probably being made by the same people that thought we evolved in the Afar triangle because that is where the fossils were.  They were/are extremely shortsighted to no recognize that only a very tiny percentage of Earths surface has 2 million year old fossils.

Answer 6

your numbers are incorrect.

total world population today is more like

6,602,224,175

as of July, 2007.    that's SIX Billion

(6000 times one million)

Answer 7

Paternal's numbers are way off.  150,000 years ago, we had dwindled to less that 5,000 individuals on the entire planet.  Mankind was facing extinction.

Answer 8

The numbers are incorrect.

As I heard it, the "Eve" project determined by genetics that the population a quarter million years ago may have been more like a couple dozen.

Answer 9

If you think that's great, wait till 2050 when it will be either 12 Billion, or a few hundred thousands running around in the dark with a torch.  Okay, I'll give you to 2070 to get to the ability to make torches.

Every 13 years add one billion, so just before 1/1/2000 we were at 6 Billion (1960 it was 3 Billion) and the you add global warming rising oceans desertification.  And I turned 50 this year.  We my 100th will be something.

Answer 10

Well, 2 million years ago; we (homosapiens) hadn't really evolved yet.....

But, human population has exploded with the invention of medicines and health care (meaning we live longer, and our kids tend to survive); not to mention that populations that have no predators tend to grow exponentially.

INterestingly, its the developing world taking advantage of the medecine, but not getting the same level of education and prosperity that are growing the fastest.  I guess that means if we want to curb growth- Education and prosperity have to be spread.

Answer 11

Try this timeline:

2 million years ago=perhaps a few thousand Homo Erectus.

1 million years ago=perhaps a few thousand Homo Heidelbergensis.

200,000 years ago=perhaps a few thousand Homo Sapiens emerged gradually.

100,000 years ago=25-100,000 Homo Sapiens.

75,000 years ago= Homo Sapiens were reduced by the explosion of the Sumatran volcano to an estimated 2-10,000.

10,000 years ago=5 million Homo Sapiens, after the end of the last Ice Age.

5,000 years ago=100 million Homo Sapiens. Population spiked because of farming, and the ability to store food!

1 AD=250 million Homo Sapiens worldwide.

1803=1 billion people, worldwide.

2000=6 billion people.

2100=After WW-IV, human population is reduced back to 1 million...

Answer 12

dude theres 6 billion people in the world today.