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It seems extremely unlikely that there was a flat population for millions of years (considering e.g. the human population has doubled in the last 50 years), and
by teachingassist 6y ago
It seems extremely unlikely that there was a flat population for millions of years (considering e.g. the human population has doubled in the last 50 years), and this wouldn't be my starting assumption.
A small, flat population is even more unlikely - any disruption would wipe out the population more quickly than millions of years down the line.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoPopulations reach equilibrium very quickly on a geologic timescale. Humans had a relatively flat population graph until the past 10kya or so as well (and realistically long after that point as well).
- jjk166 6y agoYou have to have a flat population over long timescales. If you started with two tyrannosaurs and had a population growth rate of just 0.02% (population doubles every 6600 years), there would be approximately 500 billion tyrannosaurs on the planet at the same time by the point they went extinct. It's likely the population fluctuated up and down slightly on short timescales, but the average would have been constant. They were spread out over a continent so any disruption would need to be very widespread to take them all out - which eventually of course is exactly what happened. Humans are unique in that we can develop technology to exceed our carrying capacity.
- neolog 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population#/media/File:Population_curve.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_...
- teachingassist 6y agoThis graph is smoothed out first by the logarithmic nature, and second by the fact that "estimates for the 1st century suggest uncertainty of the order of 50%" (and that's only 2000 years ago). The graph does not show us that anybody thinks the human population was flat before a certain point.