How Populations Grow | The Institute for Creation Research

How Populations Grow

“And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7).

Populations can grow very rapidly. For example, one can calculate that the seventy who came into Egypt with Jacob (Genesis 46:27) could easily have multiplied to over five million in just ten generations, assuming only that the average family had six children who lived and reproduced, and that only two generations were living contemporaneously at any one time. This was less than half the number in Jacob’s immediate family. The actual count of the grown Israelite men (not including the tribe of Levi) who left Egypt with Moses was “six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty” (Numbers 1:46). The total population was probably between two and three million at the time.

This illustrates how rapidly populations can grow when conditions are favorable. In fact, if a simple geometric growth rate is assumed (which was the assumption made by Charles Darwin in relation to his imagined “struggle for existence” in nature), it would only take about 1100 years—assuming 35 years per generation—to develop the present world population of six billion people. Immediately after the Flood, with only eight people and the whole world before them, with long life spans still prevailing, and with every incentive to have large families, the population surely would have grown explosively. Yet the average annual growth rate since the Flood need only have been one-fourth the present growth rate to produce the world’s present population in the 4000 years (minimum) since that time.

All of which indicates that the evolutionary scenario, which assumes that human populations have been on the earth for about a million years, is absurd. The whole universe could not hold all the people! HMM

The Latest
NEWS
Can Metals Explain the Origin of Life?
A spark plug can make a spark, but no one would say a spark plug can build a car. In much the same way, a chemical reaction can do one useful job without...

NEWS
Jumping Genes: Engineered to Move
Scientists recently found a “jumping gene” in an odd place. An RNA molecule from a tiny predatory bacterium had entered the cells of a very...

NEWS
Institute for Creation Research Partners with Louisiana Baptist...
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) announced today a strategic handover of its School of Biblical Apologetics (SOBA) educational content to Louisiana...

NEWS
A Tangled Human Tree—or One Human Family?
What if the “ghosts” in our DNA are not lost steps in human evolution? A new Science study found DNA patterns that may point to two unknown...

NEWS
Mapping the Sense of Smell
Your sense of smell involves much more than enjoying a hike through an aromatic pine forest or appreciating delicious foods.1,2 Our ability...

NEWS
September 11, 2001: We Will Never Forget
“Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked: for there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the...

NEWS
What Can Fossil Teeth Really Tell Us?
A few tiny fossil teeth have been asked to carry a very large story. Researchers used them to name a new order of marsupials, Keeunamorphia, and to...

NEWS
Man and His Labor
“Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.” (Psalm 104:23) The 104th Psalm is a beautiful psalm of creation and...

NEWS
Changing Climates, Stable Primates
What do you picture when you think of the first primates? Conventional scientists have long proposed warm forests, thick vines, and tropical heat as...

NEWS
September Wallpaper
"[Cast] all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."  (1 Peter 5:7, NKJV) ICR's September 2026 wallpaper is now...