Beware of a population myth making the rounds, again

While I was surfing over my friends’ ‘blogs on my day off, trying to see if there was anything I could post to add to their conversations, I saw this cool rebuttal being researched, courtesy of my friend Mark M. Seems there’s this “factoid” going around again about the number of people living on Earth (6.5 billion and growing) is greater than those who have ever lived before. My guess it’s probably promoted by those with a literal interpretation of the bible and other religious texts. I was never good at Biology yet even I could never believe such a flawed statement since I know humans in our current “form” have existed for at least 100 centuries, the study goes with conservative estimates at 500 centuries; I was only off by a factor of five. Back in 1998, National Geographic did a series of articles in preparation of the new millenium that also debunked an old myth about life expectancy which also strengthened my rejection of the “factoid.” Before the 1700s, if a person lived to be five, the odds favored this person living to be 70 or older unless famine, war or plague ravaged the land. So the world’s population hovering at the 250-500 million mark until the Industrial Revolution seems to back the study’s rough estimate.