| Questions about Generations and human population
Posted: 9/24/2009 12:24:52 AM | Ever put much thought into how many pairs and combinations of people it took to bring us here today... we being the future of all those before us. I kinda got to thinking about it while tracing back my family to the 6th generation. I was impressed that I had 64 grandparents in that generation... only 2 of them I could find any record of and that's as far back as I could go. But I created a formula to start working backwards. Now... I say 'pairs' and 'combinations' because obviously you get to a point in history where 'family' and 'boy friend/girl friend' don't have todays moral standards.
So my formula works like this... pretend you are Generation 1... you where born in the year 2000. A pair of people created you every 20 years back. So in 1980, two people created you. in 1960 4 people created those two. In 1940 8 people created the 4 that created the two.
The year is 1620 ... you are the heritage of of over a million grandparents
By Generation 31 in the year 1420 you are the heritage of over one billion grandparents
In the year 1000 you are back 52 generations. You are the Great^51, Grandchild of over 2 quintillion grandparents... not really sure how that works as it super exceeds the population of the planet... but meh... math is fun
Now as I got down to the year 1000, I decided to change up my formula a little bit... from what I looked up about women in those times, if she was old enough to have her period, she was old enough to be married and have children. But it didn't play out like that for royalty, so just to keep it simple, and not gross, I lowered the generations to every 15 years.
As far back as I could go before the math just gets to insane was -20BC... At that time over 1 duodecillion men & women where involved with each other in order to give you life today. A duodecillion is a 10 with 39 zeros after it. <---?
That doesn't seem right....
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| Questions about Generations and human population
Posted: 9/24/2009 12:40:24 AM | It isn't right. It makes faulty assumptions, such as unlimited unique ancestors. The reality is, many ancestors would have been distant relatives of each other, whether they knew it or not.
Basically, many of those insanely large numbers of individuals are illusions - the same person appears many times in different parts of the ancestry. | |
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| Questions about Generations and human population
Posted: 9/24/2009 12:55:25 AM | There is the idea two kids from different families could have come from 3 parents only. Then the idea that parent and child might of had children here and there...
The number would still be huge but keep in mind that they weren't all walking the planet at the same time. 8 billion today + 6 billion before those where born+ 4 billions before those were born........
Edit:
Wow, I'm really confused now and too tired to do the real logic of it. I keep editing and re-editing | |
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| Questions about Generations and human population
Posted: 9/24/2009 1:52:40 AM | That's basically the same explanation - each 'family' has two parents, even though one parent is part of more than one family.
It's easier to appreciate if you start with a small number of individuals and map out their descendants. Instead of the standard "2.2" children per couple, make it something larger, so you can see the population growing more easily. "4" works nicely.
After a few generations, you not only have a large number of individuals, but you can expect many of them to be unaware they are marrying distant cousins. You still get a vast number of humans in the end, but it requires a SMALL number of ancestors, not an impossibly large number.
That doesn't seem right....
This is a problem with many of your threads. You usually attribute YOUR lack of understanding to a problem with the concept, when in actuality it is both factual and far more likely that it is actually your own understanding which is at fault. In this case, it's a simple and obvious error of false assumptions. | |
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| Questions about Generations and human population
Posted: 9/25/2009 8:06:22 AM |
This is a problem with many of your threads. You usually attribute YOUR lack of understanding to a problem with the concept, when in actuality it is both factual and far more likely that it is actually your own understanding which is at fault. In this case, it's a simple and obvious error of false assumptions.
The experiment wasn't really an experiment, more of an observation. It also wasn't really based on family structure. It was based on the idea, that as you follow back your direct family line. Every single person comes from two people. Whether those two people are your brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents is irrelevant... I think I stated clearly as you go backwards in time family is obviously involved, but it still takes 2 people to make 1 new person. The population of each generation back doubles... even if its all cousins, some of them possibly multiple times.
Can't Really draw pictures on here very well... But
1m came from 2m & 3f
2m Came from 4m& 5f
3f Came from 4m & 6f
So 2m and 3f where half brother/sister as they shared the same father... Yes I know that wouldn't work very well and would cause all kinds of genetic problems but it is still 4 that made the two that made the 1. | |
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| Questions about Generations and human population
Posted: 9/25/2009 10:18:11 AM | All the name are fictional and I apologize for any resemblance to anybody as it wasn't meant that way.
Joe came from Mary and John = 3
Peppy had sex with Stinky and they had Mary
Peppy had sex with Smelly and they had John
Peppy, Stinky, Mary, Smelly, John, Joe = 6
Not 7
You see, two kids doesn't necessarily equal 4 parents. One father could have had two kids with different mothers...
Then if brother and sister had a kid it messes up you math as well because brother and sister both had the same parents...
Joe came from Mary and John = 3
Mary and john both came from Sicillia and Salt = 5
Not 7
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