A person can know that God exists by studying nature.

[Offeror]

Lack of knowledge or understanding does not mean god did it. It means you lack knowledge and/or understanding.

Of course it doesn't. I began by pointing out elements within nature that we view as beautiful, and as evolutionary science hinges on species adapting to their environments so it begs the question why should an environmental necessity make the acquisition of beauty as a trait plausible?

I am just proposing, that as a beautiful portrait is the work of an artist, so beauty in nature, that far exceeds any work of the greatest artist that mankind has produced, should point towards the ultimate artist.

Unless of course, beauty doesn't exist as our friends here have so aptly described.

[Elithium]

Of course it doesn't. I began by pointing out elements within nature that we view as beautiful, and as evolutionary science hinges on species adapting to their environments so it begs the question why should an environmental necessity make the acquisition of beauty as a trait plausible?

I am just proposing, that as a beautiful portrait is the work of an artist, so beauty in nature, that far exceeds any work of the greatest artist that mankind has produced, should point towards the ultimate artist.

Unless of course, beauty doesn't exist as our friends here have so aptly described.

A man and a woman find certain traits attractive. These traits can be documented. Some traits are also universally attractive, such as symmetrical features, proportional features, ect. An "attractive" face should have an equal distance across the brow as from the brow to the end of nose. When I was a child and my grandfather was teaching me to draw, he taught me about the importance of facial symmetry. This is a well documented fact.

Other items that we find beautiful can all be attributed to certain desired characteristics.

So again, simply because you do not know why we humans appreciate beauty does not imply god exists.

[BlackSheep]

Of course it doesn't. I began by pointing out elements within nature that we view as beautiful, and as evolutionary science hinges on species adapting to their environments so it begs the question why should an environmental necessity make the acquisition of beauty as a trait plausible?

And the answer still to a degree is unknown or ignorance. We have presented why it is not only plausible but likely, but we don't have all the answers.

I am just proposing, that as a beautiful portrait is the work of an artist, so beauty in nature, that far exceeds any work of the greatest artist that mankind has produced, should point towards the ultimate artist.

How?

Unless of course, beauty doesn't exist as our friends here have so aptly described.

How has described that?

[Questatement]

Uh, I did the math and it's actually 5.2 billion people after only 900 years but only if nobody dies and every couple keeps pumping out 3 kids every 30 years - even the 900 year old couples! Those 3 original couples have 90 kids each. Clearly there are some problems with your calculation and it's assumptions.

My math was based on 3 kids *only* per couple by the couple's age of 30. Yours seems to assume a longer pre-diluvium life-span, not the post of 120 yrs. max.

If you don't want to invoke magic to explain the diversity of human life from so few individuals then please explain this.

Novel alleles form via intrangenic recombination at an alarmingly rapid rate as well as to immediately meet/overcome the challenge of a given enviromental challenge. This is exactly what should be expected from an argument of design.

If you can't find enough information by Googling the four key words that I italicised above, let me know and I'll give you more non-creationist studies than you can shake a stick at.

[Senor Hoint]

Random natural processes that allow an animal to adapt should not provide an end product that is beautiful.

"Beautiful" is not an objective quality of something. It is a human-created attribute that is completely subjective.

It is unsurprising that we should find the planet Earth to be beautiful when we evolved on it.

[Peter]

My math was based on 3 kids *only* per couple by the couple's age of 30. Yours seems to assume a longer pre-diluvium life-span, not the post of 120 yrs. max.

Ok, calculation revised so that every couple has only 3 kids at 30 years and everyone dies at 120 years of age. I assumed that 6 people were born at year zero for a starting point. They had 9 children at 30 years. The original 6 lived until the 120 year point when 6 is removed from the total population. You get the idea.

Results at 900 years -

Births - 3,451,507
Deaths - 681,770
Population - 2,769,738

This is much less than your 1.15 BILLION at 900 years. However if we continue from the time of the flood until jesus was nailed to the cross(2370 years) we'd have a world population of 1,177,362,796,091,970 or over a quadrillion. I think it's safe to assume that your assumptions are very wrong about population growth.

Novel alleles

form via intrangenic recombination at an alarmingly rapid rate as well as to immediately meet/overcome the challenge of a given enviromental challenge. This is exactly what should be expected from an argument of design.

If you can't find enough information by Googling the four key words that I italicised above, let me know and I'll give you more non-creationist studies than you can shake a stick at.

Thanks, I'll check it out and get back to you. It's interesting to note that creationists constantly argue that additional information can't evolve and now that it's a problem with finding the necessary genetic diversity, post flood, a mechanism is found that adds information to the gene pool at an "alarmingly rapid rate". Just sayin'.

[Questatement]

Ok, calculation revised so that every couple has only 3 kids at 30 years and everyone dies at 120 years of age.... This is much less than your 1.15 BILLION at 900 years.

Maybe someone else should check my math. If you take the product of 6 times 1.5 and continue multiplying each new product by 1.5, it only takes 30 such equations to arrive at my number but anyone can feel free to check it.

Thanks, I'll check it out and get back to you. It's interesting to note that creationists constantly argue that additional information can't evolve and now that it's a problem with finding the necessary genetic diversity, post flood, a mechanism is found that adds information to the gene pool at an "alarmingly rapid rate". Just sayin'.

Novel does not necessitate additional, only unexpressed - not to be confused with (organized/recognizably) recessive alleles.

[el ايمان]

Maybe someone else should check my math. If you take the product of 6 times 1.5 and continue multiplying each new product by 1.5, it only takes 30 such equations to arrive at my number but anyone can feel free to check it.

Novel does not necessitate additional, only unexpressed - not to be confused with (organized/recognizably) recessive alleles.

That's slightly flawed because you're multiplying it by 1.5. The product of 3 times 3 and continuing would help the process because several times you would reach an odd number of children in the new generation, in which case you'd have to leave one child celibate.

The way I calculated this was to start with the original number of people [which was 6], divide the number by 2 [so as to form a couple] and then multiply that number by 3 [so as to give the couple 3 children]. Whenever the number of children was odd [such as in generation 2, where there were 9 children] I subtracted 1 child, as I think we agreed the couples would mate only enough for 3 children, so I would assume they were monogamous.

This results in the amount of children born to their generation. I'm putting the number I got into quotes so that anyone can correct an error when it is seen.

1st gen 6
2st gen 9
3st gen 12
4st gen 18
5st gen 27
6st gen 39
7st gen 57
8st gen 84
9st gen 126
10st gen 189
11st gen 282
12st gen 423
13st gen 633
14st gen 948
15st gen 1422
16st gen 2133
17st gen 3198
18st gen 4797
19st gen 7194
20st gen 10791
21st gen 16185
22st gen 24276
23st gen 36414
24st gen 54621
25st gen 81930
26st gen 122895
27st gen 184341
28st gen 276510
29st gen 414765
30st gen 622146
31st gen 933219

I calculated a total of 2799690 people.

Because every generation is 30 years, and because we're assuming everyone dies after 120 years of life, and assuming that everyone in generation 31 is an infant, we can assume that everyone in generation 27 is holding onto dear life at the tender age of around 120.

Therefore, if we add the number of people born in generation 27 through generation 31, we get a total of 2,430,981 people alive after 900 years, of whom 184, 341 are about to die.

This of course, assumes that nobody in any of the generations die before producing 3 children, which would have been a tremendous feat back before modern medicine [the feat isn't producing a lot of children, it's staying alive], although if we speculate that everyone married young, I guess it's not that incredible. It also, however, assumes that there was 1 male for every 1 female, which is most likley not the case either.

[Questatement]

... in which case you'd have to leave one child celibate.

This might only apply in the earliest of generations, if at all - keep in mind that polygyny was a common practice of the time.

Anyway, by your assumptions, how long after the flood would your population hit 1 billion?

[Peter]

Anyway, by your assumptions, how long after the flood would your population hit 1 billion?

They're your assumptions and a billion comes up very quickly since by the time jesus gets executed there'll be over a quadrillion people on the planet. Your assumptions and your math are rubbish my friend.

[Questatement]

They're your assumptions and a billion comes up very quickly since by the time jesus gets executed there'll be over a quadrillion people on the planet. Your assumptions and your math are rubbish my friend.

Woaa, back up... way up.

The original assertion that I addressed was that it would be impossible to arrive at our current population starting with ONLY 2 at creation or 6/8? people post flood.

Not, "Why don't we have more people today?"

If you want to talk about why the population is so small compared to it's potential based on biblical couples and dates, that's an entirely different topic.

[el ايمان]

This might only apply in the earliest of generations, if at all - keep in mind that polygyny was a common practice of the time.

Anyway, by your assumptions, how long after the flood would your population hit 1 billion?

This doesn't fit your parameters. Shall I redo the math for you, where each man has 3 children by each of the women?

Anyways, you wanted to know when the population would reach 1 billion.

I'm killing off the oldest generation for this calculation, so that it's only 4 living at a time as opposed to 5.

To reach 1 billion people, starting with 6, assuming they don't die of inbred genetic diseases, assuming they form the most monogamous couples possible per generation, assuming there is a 1:1 male:female ratio in each generation, assuming each monogamous couple has 3 children, assuming nobody dies before the age of 120, assuming everybody dies at age 120, assuming each generation is 30 years, the population would reach 1 billion sometime after the 46th generation is born and sometime before all of generation 47 is born. This would be about 450 years after you predicted.