How old's the human race?

Freedom rocks

Hi does anyone know any good articles or videos about how old mankind and the earth are and carbon dating?

I've just started looking into it but there seems to be a lot of conflicting ideas over accuracy so I'm unsure what to think.

Thanks

Modern humans have been around for perhaps 200,000 years but there was no 'first human'. The evidence for the origins of our species comes from a variety of scientific disciplines including comparative anatomy, paleontology and genetics. You will find a number of examples in this index of threads...

There is a good article here about radiometric dating by a scientist who is also a christian and who hopes to help other christians who doubt the evidence.

Dates are confirmed by multiple independent radiometric 'clocks' that move at different speeds. Radiocarbon dating is only useful for artefacts up to about 45,000 years old.

If you have any specific questions please let us know.

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Freedom rocks

Thanks cofty will have a look

Freedom rocks

I remember a talk years ago where the speaker said human dna shows that we all descend from 2 people, 1 man and 1 woman. Wonder where he got that info from

cofty

The speaker was probably misunderstanding a couple of different facts about our ancestry.

In a nutshell ancestors are much rarer than descendants. All humans alive today can trace their mitochondrial DNA (passed on only by females) to a last common ancestor sometimes called 'mitochondrial Eve' who lived in Africa about 100,000 - 150,000 years ago. Please bear in mind that she was only one of a population of many thousands who no longer have living descendants.

Similarly all men have a Y-chromosome that can be traced back to a single individual - also one member of a large population - who lived at approximately 180,000 years ago. Having said that different studies have come up with different results for those dates but none of them are less than 100K. These are examples of genetic bottle-necks but it is highly unlikely that they occurred within mellennia of each other or in the same population.

venus

Here is an interesting clue: 50 years ago, India’s population was 550 Million, and now it is 1,324 million, in spite of all the Government-sponsored family planning programs and incentives. Forget about India, and instead of 50 years in which its population becomes more than double, assign a figure as big as 500 years for the world population to be doubled. You will get a rough idea as to the age of history.

shepherdless

It doesn’t work like that, Venus. There has been a massive population explosion in the last couple of centuries due to modern health and sanitation, modern medicine, the Haber process, etc. Before that, population levels were relatively stable, even over millenia.

cofty

@Venus. Shepherdless is correct. The earth's population was very stable for most of human history. More than once our species came close to extinction.

If you are going to talk about science please try reading an actual science book first.

scratchme1010

I've just started looking into it but there seems to be a lot of conflicting ideas over accuracy so I'm unsure what to think.

I'm not sure you will get a definite answer on this. However, you can make your most educated conclusion yourself.

WhatshallIcallmyself

Using 'venus maths' the population of India 1500 years ago was 1.

I guess venus just proved the human race didn't exist 2000 years ago and therefore Jesus never existed nor the Roman empire or anything else for that matter.

Venus, that is how you 'logic' isn't it? You first state something inane and then conclude something ludicrous? Am I getting your methodology accurate?

How old's the human race?

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