Why is evolution so controversial?

Wait, are you talking about that Shapiro? The researcher who worked with genetic algorithms to produce highly complex electronic circuitry through evolutionary processes? Functional circuits unlike anything that any intelligent designer (in this case, a human engineer) would have designed? Functional circuits so complex and containing so many interdependencies that they could be seen as "irreducibly complex"?In trade periodicals (electrical engineering) I had read a number of articles about his work and similar work by others. One of them used a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to evolve a differential amplifier. The result worked well within parameters, but was unlike anything that any human would have designed, was incredibly complex, and all changes attempted by the experimenter caused it to stop working, so it was "irreducibly complex". As I recall, it turned out that the end result depended far more on the subtle differences in the electrical characteristics of the FPGA components (no two identical electronic components are exactly the same), something that no engineer could have done.Those articles clearly demonstrated that complexity, even "irreducible complexity", is exactly what we would expect to see in the products of evolutionary processes. People who exclaim that something is "too complex to have evolved" simply do not know what they are talking about.

Wow, you've done it again! First you proved that microevolution leads directly and seamlessly to macroevolution (and then tried to hide the fact from yourself by reinventing the meanings of words) and now you have perfectly described creationism and religious dogma as what they truly are, hot air.How do you try to qualify evolution as "hot air"? And isn't that exactly what religion is? All mental stuff. And religion is far worse off than science is, because religion doesn't even have theory whereas science does. Remember that theory includes testing hypotheses with the evidence of nature, so science includes an element of verification with reality. OTOH, religion does not involve testing its idea with the evidence of nature, so religion is even more purely "mental stuff" than science is, making religion even greater "hot air" than science, by your own definition.So religion starts with something that somebody said which leads to something be written down -- knowing how oral tradition changes as it's being told, it is doubtful that what was written down is the same as what was originally said. That was all mental stuff. Then people start interpreting what was written, which all just more mental stuff, AKA "hot air". Out of that they build a theology, much more "hot air". From the start of building that theology, they introduce their own ideas that were not part of the writings, ideas about the text of the writings and about the very nature of the writings themselves, much much more "hot air". That process of adding ideas to the theology continues, adding ever more "hot air". And the theologians continue to interpret and reinterpret that theology without any reality checks, adding ever more "hot air". And then true believers come on-line to promote that theology, contributing their own "hot air". Again, you are perfectly describing what creationists, including yourself, do all the time. Because creationism makes the mistake of trying to appear to verify itself against the evidence, but cause the evidence contradicts their beliefs that causes them no end of problems. So they have to expend great energy trying to deny and explain away the evidence. They'll grasp at any straw they can, twist and distort any fact, misquote any scientist, and make up any lie they can in that effort.Just look at your own efforts in the Grand Canyon thread, where you repeatedly grasped at straws, citing something that you thought you had read or thought you had seen in a graphic, only to be show time and time again how completely wrong you were, that that new "evidence" you had grasped instead disproved your position. Instead of learning something, you rationalized all the evidence away and ended up claiming that you had supported your position successfully. All you demonstrated with that is that you are either hopelessly delusional or an unscrupulous liar ... or both. Similarly, after conclusively demonstrating that microevolution leads to macroevolution, you rationalized that away by giving standard English terminology bizarre new definitions, thus "defining the problem away", an unscrupulous practice of lawyers, the masters of hot air.

Silly rabbit! You just committed that creaky old PRATT called The Bunny Blunder. From my 1991 discussion of it (THE BUNNY BLUNDER, or What's Up, Doc Morris?):

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Nor does Morris' population model limit us to the human population. If we apply the model to rabbits, whose population doubles every two years, then we find that the world rabbit population (all species of rabbit being due to variation within the basic created bunny kind) had to have come from two bunnies created about 100 years ago. Here we have clear evidence that the earth can be no older than 100 years! The alternative to such a very young earth is to say that creation is on-going and rabbits were created ex nihilo in the last century (please ignore any mention of rabbits in the literature preceeding the time of their creation -- they simply didn't exist). We should see new species being created ex nihilo all the time. But we don't; so why aren't we up to our necks in bunnies? Yes, indeed: Creationism is more fun than science!

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Read the rest of that page for the complete explanation. You, like Dr. Henry Morris, PhD Hydraulic Engineering, former President of the ICR and co-creator of "creation science", made the fundamental mistake of using an invalid mathematical model. You both used the "pure-birth model", which makes the assumption of unlimited resources so there are no limits placed on population growth. In reality, the environment can only support a limited number of critters (eg, bunnies, humans), so as the population approaches that limit, known as the environment's "carrying capacity", its growth starts to slow down, stop, and even go into fluctuation between periods of growth and decline. The model that takes carrying capacity into account is called the "logistic model" and even that model cannot take into account other significant factors, such as predator-prey cycles and catastrophic events (eg, the Black Death, during which the European population's growth rate declined) and migration (which is a factor when trying to model the growth of the US population).From my page:

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Of course, the real thing is not so simple. The Logistic Model does not take into account disasters such as plagues or wars. At the start of the Plague in Europe (mid-14th century), one quarter of the population died in a single year and the population continued to decline for the next two centuries, drastically so in the epidemic years. Also, the carrying capacity of the environment is variable due to several factors such as drought, good weather, and agricultural technology. In non-human animal populations, predator-prey interactions come into play, resulting in pronounced cycles. All of these factors will affect the rate of population growth/decay.

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So the human population, like the rabbit population, can indeed be millions of years old and still be no larger than we find it at present; we need but acknowledge the effects of its environment's low carrying capacity for most of its history. Our population's explosive growth these past few centuries can be attributed to the sudden increase of the carrying capacity due mainly to applied technology, such as agriculture and, more recently, sanitation and medicine.

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CONCLUSION:

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Morris' population model is simplistic even by an introductory textbook's standards and is sadly typical of the ICR's "science." Like their probability arguments, it is based on false premises which are then used to reach false conclusions. Ironically, the Bunny Blunder's assumption of a constant rate of change is exactly what the ICR criticizes radiometric dating for, only here such an assumption is totally unwarranted.

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In Troubled Waters, Dr. Morris says: "The burden of proof is altogether on evolutionists if they wish to promote some other population model." Judging from his Bunny Blunder, we need to ask him, "What's up, Doc?"

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But I would be remiss if I were to not share the hilarious part of the Bunny Blunder:

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But now we get to the weird part (no, that isn't what we were just doing). In his article, "Creationists, Population Growth, Bunnies, and the Great Pyramid," David H. Milne points out that since Morris' population model is predictive, then we should be able to use it to determine the world human population at any time in human history. Therefore, it reveals some interesting facts about human history.
According to Morris' model, in 2500 BCE, the world population was 750 people, so there were only about 150 to 200 able-bodied males, all concentrated in Egypt, available to hew and haul the 2.3 million limestone blocks ranging in weight from 2 to 50 tons to build the Great Pyramid of Cheops. During the preceding 200 years, even fewer men built six neighboring pyramids and many other structures. Things were even more hectic back between 3800 BCE and 3600 BCE when the total world population of 10 - 20 people, including women and children, rushed madly back and forth between Crete and the Indus River Valley building and abandoning enough fortified cities and massive irrigation systems to have housed and fed millions. My father was right; we HAVE gotten soft!

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One immediately apparent error in Morris' 1974 reasoning is that he forgot the Flood! (how could he, the Father of Modern Flood Geology?) The present human population did not start with some un-named couple recently evicted from an un-named Garden, but rather with the 8 un-named passengers debarking from an un-named Ark at the end of a year-long voyage through an un-named world-wide Flood (isn't this game of "Hide the Bible" fun?). However, working with the ICR's dates for the Creation and Flood (c 8000 BCE and 4600 BCE), and applying Morris' human population model, James S. Monroe discovered some even more interesting "facts" about the antediluvian world. According to the ICR's premises, the world population at the time of the Flood would have been at least 7.2946 E+19 people, or 13,000 people per square foot over the entire earth's surface. And if the flood only happened 4000 years ago as other ICR works suggest, then the mass of people on earth just before the Flood would have exceeded the mass of the earth itself.

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Verily I say unto you: Creationism is more fun than science!Edited by dwise1, : changed subtitle

What the hell does talkorigins.org have to do with my essay? I very clearly stated that I wrote it on 08 June 1991, which was several years before the talkorigins.org web site even came into existence. A few years before the general public had even been granted access to the Internet. Which is why I had originally posted my essay on CompuServe, a dial-up service -- again, as I clearly stated.I am the author of that essay and I did perform the research. I read each and every one of the thirteen sources that I cite in the bibliography.I want to recommend that you go visit your talkorigins.com site, but I won't. It's obviously a porn or infected site that preys on fools such as yourself who have no idea what they are doing; it's a very old trick, like WhiteHouse.com and nassa.com were and maybe still are.But I would recommend very strongly that you do go visit the real site, talkorigins.org. You have a lot to learn and that is a good site through which to learn. Assuming that you are capable of learning, which is contraindicated by your conduct so far here. A constant that automatically adjusts to other factors? A constant that is not constant? Whatever kind of math did you learn?Oh no! Kent Hovind used to teach math and science in his own private Christian high school. He did that for 13 years, so he claims to have done it for 15 years, apparently a victim of his own ignorance of the subject matter. I have often wondered what that experience had done to his students. Are you one of those poor souls? No wonder you don't understand math! I feel so sorry for you! Are you kidding? Are you really that clueless? Don't you know what that equation is? It is the pure-birth model. The one that doesn't work because it doesn't take the environment's carrying capacity into account.You go through all that trouble to quote part of what I had posted and you never even bother to read it? Here it is again; read it this time:

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You both used the "pure-birth model", which makes the assumption of unlimited resources so there are no limits placed on population growth. In reality, the environment can only support a limited number of critters (eg, bunnies, humans), so as the population approaches that limit, known as the environment's "carrying capacity", its growth starts to slow down, stop, and even go into fluctuation between periods of growth and decline. The model that takes carrying capacity into account is called the "logistic model" ...

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BTW, I presented a bibliography of all my sources. What was your source? "Now who is proposition is sillier?"?????? WTF? What is that supposed to mean? It's gibberish!Oh! Did you mean to say: "Now whose proposition is sillier?"? Was that it? Jeez! Why didn't you just say so? I hadn't heard anything about Hovind mis-teaching English as well.Here's a scenario. Two people, male and female of appropriate breeding age, are left on an island. It's a nice island with plenty of food and water and shelter. Got a very nice climate too. The only drawback is that the island can only support 100 people. Well, that's no problem for our couple, but it could become a concern for their descendents.Let's pretend that we are Asgardians. After having placed that couple on that island, we return 1000 years later. What do we find? How many people are living on that island now?According to your population model, with an r value of .005 we would find about 297 people living on that island. That island that cannot support more than 100 people. Would you care to explain how that many people could living there? And if we had waited for 2000 years, as we Asgardians could easily have done, then you would insist that we should find 44,053 people living on that island which cannot support more than 100.According to the logistic model, in which r is a function of the current population size (as I clearly explained), population growth would slow down as we approach the island's carrying capacity of 100, approaching zero and even going negative when we exceed that level.So after 2000 years, I would predict that there would be no more than 100 people on that island, whereas you would insist that there should be more than 44,000.Whose proposition is sillier? Yours is absolutely ridiculous! Yep! That's creationists for you, alright! That's all that they do. That's all that they can do, because the truth does not support their contrary-to-fact claims.Don't believe anything you read on creationist sites. They're lying their asses off to you.Edited by dwise1, : minor fixes: question mark, "the talkorigins.org web site"Edited by dwise1, : anything, not everything

I read words! I do not sound everything out inside my head, but rather I read the words that are written. And I find it confusing when someone uses the completely wrong word. Which then becomes irritating. Why should it be too much to expect that he/she/it write in English?

Oh, he is a native speaker of English. A non-native speaker would not make that kind of error. A non-native speaker's errors involving word choice would not be based on sound. I know that, having been a non-native speaker on several occasions and having communicated with non-native speakers on a programming forum.I do not demand perfect English, rather I request comprehensible English. Nor are issues about grammar "quibbling". As a life-long student of several languages, several human and several computer, I understand the vital importance of grammar. Grammar is the very structure of the language. Grammar is what enables a language to convey meaning. Without grammar, without its structure, attempts to use a language descend into gibberish.As written, what he wrote was gibberish; it had no meaning. As spoken, what he wrote might be mistaken for comprehensible English. But on this forum we cannot enjoy the luxury of hearing what he wrote, but rather can only read it as the gibberish that it is.You complain that it is a distraction, but your complaining about it is what's creating that distraction. Give it a rest.

Yes, a "non-constant constant." You still have not explained that particular oxymoron.Now, if you had actually learned any math, then you would know that a value which is dependent on another value is not handled by a constant, but rather by a function. A pure-birth/death model uses a constant rate, whereas a logistic model uses a rate which is a function of the conditions, primarily of the population size.As I keep telling you and you keep ignoring: You are using the wrong model! But your model requires that we choose a single value of for the entire growth of the population. As a result, your model does not accurately predict the population size.You almost stumbled upon it earlier in your search for a value for r. The rate of growth at different times in our history was different. That is why we cannot use a single constant rate, but rather need to use a rate which is a function of the conditions. Duh?But let's test your method. If you had actually studied any math or have any kind of understanding of math, you should recognize that I am about to employ "proof by contradiction", in which to prove something you assume the opposite, carry it to its mathematical conclusion, show that the opposite produces a mathematical impossibility which disqualifies it, so the original must be true. Of course I cannot apply that strictly, but at least I can demonstrate that your pure-birth model is not correct.You say, "You must calculate a new (r) for that island, ... " OK, let's do that. We are going to end up with a population holding constant at about 100 people for highly extended periods of time, such as several thousands of years. What value of r would express that? I submit that, for your model, the value of r would need to be zero.OK, using your model with a value of zero for r, as your model demands, what is the size of the population after 100 years? Two people. Is that really what we should actually find? No, that is very unreasonable. At first, the population experiences virtually unlimited resources, so it should grow exponentially as in a normal pure-birth situation. Your pure-birth model fails utterly.For the same island, the same environment, the same amount of resources, etc, there is no one single value of r that accounts for population growth and size throughout the history of that population. The value of r must change in order to even begin to model what's happening with this population. In this idealized scenario, the only thing that changes is the size of the population and it is the size of the population which causes the rate of population growth, the value of r, to change. Therefore, r cannot be a constant, but rather must be a function which varies according to an independent variable, which in this case -- and in most cases -- would be the current population size.That is simple math. Why are you incapable of understanding it? OK, so when you start counting past 10 you take off your shoes and socks, but then what do you do when you have to count past 20?I said that, because you are demonstrating that you are incapable of doing simple math. Fundamental concepts like constants and functions appear to be beyond you.Ever hear of GIGO? "Garbage in, garbage out"? Only for creationist claims it's more like "Garbage in, Gospel out." Using math to prove something only works if your mathematical model actually describes what you are trying to model. That should be a simple concept to comprehend, yet you are unable to.Your model does not describe the growth of real-life populations. It's as simple as that. Trying to apply a model that does not describe the system that you're trying to analyze will yield meaningless and useless results. Your attempts to apply your pure-birth model to the entire history of human population growth cannot yield anything other than meaningless and useless results.Creationists have known for decades (at least since the early 1980's) that their human population growth model claim is false, yet they continue to preach it. It is a ludicrous lie. Why do they believe that their religion must be served and supported with lies and deception?

You can't even read, can you? Do you understand anything of what you quote? Do you even know what point you are trying to make? Are you really that clueless?You are beginning to remind me of a dumb kid who once came here to get us to join his new forum at http://creationvsevolution.freeforums.org/index.php. He had apparently recently started reading "creation science" and had gotten it into his head to use those "great new discoveries" to destroy evolution. What and others in his situation didn't know is that those "new discoveries" were just decades-old bogus creationist claims that had been soundly refuted almost immediately (hence decades before the neophyte had even been born), but the fact that they are completely false and deceptive doesn't stop creationists from lying and continuing to present them to each new generation. This kid had no clue what he was talking about, so he would plagiarize from creationist sites, simply posting their exact words as if they were his own. After he finally melted down (as admin, he started deleting messages and then lied about it -- since when did lying become a Christian virtue?; it wasn't that way half a century ago when I left Christianity) and abandoned his forum, Japanese kids have moved in and taken it over.But the funny part that resembles you was when he tried to use the bogus "leap second" claim that was created around 1979 and soundly refuted in 1982, yet is still Kent Hovind's favorite and continues to be posted all over the Web (like I said, they're lying their asses off). I kept presenting the actual facts about leap seconds and the actual rate at which the earth's rotation is slowing down, working him into a corner. I demanded that he explain part of his position and he responded by quoting a source that he thought supported his claim. Instead, he had quoted that classic 1982 article that soundly refuted the claim! The poor fool could not understand his sources! He had no idea what he was talking about!And apparently neither do you. Or at least you have offered no evidence that you do. Oh yes, I did go to high school. Even graduated. Did you?I went on to college, earning five degrees (two associates (AA Liberal Arts and AS Computer Technology) and 3 bachelors (BA German, BS Computer Science, and BA Applied Math) and did some post-graduate work, plus returned for several semesters of night classes to keep up with the ever-changing computer technology, ending up having earned more than 300 semester units. In my placement exams, I scored so high on math that I wasn't required to take any and, since I started out as a foreign language student, I didn't at first. Then at work I encountered a situation where I wanted to calculate the dimensions of a triangle based on an angle, so I taught myself trigonometry (it's really quite simple). When I started working on CS, I also took all three semesters of calculus -- actually, because I had just missed the deadline to enroll when I first arrived in the are, I took Calculus 1 as a correspondence course, meaning that I also taught myself first-semester Calculus.So, did you take any math? Or are you like Kent Hovind who would constantly brag about being such an expert on math and science, despite that fact that he had studied science for only maybe two semesters in a junior college? According to my source (which I gave in my bibliography: Michael Olnick, An Introduction to Mathematical Models in the Social and Life Sciences, 1978, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. -- or have you never followed my link, choosing instead to keep yourself ignorant, which is the common goal of creationists?), you are dead wrong. You need to do some research yourself.Olnick's third chapter, "Ecological Models: Single Species", starts his discussion of "The Pure Birth Process" on page 54. Of course, since he uses calculus it will doubtless go right over your head, but he does end up with this equation:

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P = P₀e^at

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If you do not understand how I was able to display the equation like that, then use Peek Mode to see the HTML tags that I used. Like trig and calculus, it's really quite simple.You will also notice that that is your continuous-growth equation. The Pure Birth Process (AKA "Pure Birth Model") uses a continuous-growth equation. And your linked-to source says nothing to contradict that -- actually, it doesn't say anything about it, so why did you link to it?That's right! You don't know anything about math, do you? So you had to Google for information on exponential functions. Then what? You projected your own ignorance about basic math onto me? Really, not everybody is as ignorant as you are about math.I will also refer you to a Wikipedia source that should be easier for you to access than Olnick's book, which I would assume is no longer in print. Of course, that doesn't mean that you would be able to understand what the Wikipedia article says, considering your demonstrated inability to understand your own sources: Biological exponential growth. It gives the formula as a derivative:

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If, in a hypothetical population of size N, the birth rates (per capita) are represented as b and death rates (per capita) as d, then the increase or decrease in N during a time period t will be:

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dN/dt=(b−d)N

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(b-d) is called the 'intrinsic rate of natural increase' and is a very important parameter chosen for assessing the impacts of any biotic or abiotic factor on population growth.

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Despite different variable names, that is the same equation that Olnick develops. When you integrate it and clean it up a bit, then it becomes the familiar:p(t) Ne^(b-d)twhere p(t) is the function of population size with respect to time,
and your r = (b-d)But what you should note about that article is where it states several times (my emphasis added):

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When the resources availability is unlimited in the habitat, the population of an organism living in the habitat grows in an exponential or geometric fashion.

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Resource availability is obviously essential for the unimpeded growth of a population. Ideally, when resources in the habitat are unlimited, each species has the ability to realise fully its innate potential to grow in number, as Charles Darwin observed while developing his theory of natural selection.

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. . .

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Any species growing exponentially under unlimited resource conditions can reach enormous population densities in a short time. Darwin showed how even a slow growing animal like the elephant could reach an enormous population if there were unlimited resources for its growth in its habitat.

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So the point, which you keep ignoring, is that your pure-birth formula is only of any use when the resources available to the population are unlimited. When that situation does not exist, as during virtually all of human pre-history, then your formula simply does not apply.

The first thing I did when I created my first web site was to post my old entries to the Science & Religion Library on CompuServe circa 1990. Rather then go through and re-edit all of them, I posted them as-is. We had no access to fancy formatting tools at that time on CompuServe, so everything had to be in ASCII.Even though the ^ is a popular way to indicate an exponent, it causes confusion on a C Programming Forum I contribute to, since C has no exponentiation operator and ^ is actually the exclusive-OR operator. We've actually had beginners post about the unexpected results they got when they tried to raise a value to a power by using ^ . Sorry, but since I've been learning Italian ..."ch" represents the hard "k" sound, just as "gh" represents the hard "g" sound. When followed by a front vowel (ie, an "i" or an "e"), the "c" takes on the sound like the English "ch" as in "church". Similarly, "sci" represents something like the English word "she", whereas "sco" as in "scola" would be like the "sch" in "school", which is what "scola" means. We have the same thing in English, only we lack the special spellings to help us spot the exceptions (eg, "gent" v. "get"; no hint, you just gotta know).So, the 2nd person singular familiar form of "capire" is "capisci" and the polite form is "capisce", which is the same as the 3rd person singular.Just FYI.

Why do you keep working so very hard at staying so very wrong? You are taking creationist willful ignorance to ever deeper depths. You're like a remark in a negative officer fitrep I once heard about: "He reached rock-bottom and started to dig." I have been very clear and forthright. Daphne! You're projecting again!A "local constant"? That you then apply globally? Just what the frak are you talking about? What the frak kind of creationist deception are you trying to deploy? Or have you simply succeeded in confusing yourself completely?Pure birth model uses the equation for exponential growth. The logistic model also uses the equation for exponential growth. The only difference between them is that the pure-birth model, your model, uses a constant rate, given in our discussions as r, whereas the logistic model uses a variable rate, a rate that can change from one generation to the next in response to environmental and other factors.You oppose the logistic model and espouse the pure birth model, while at the same time do a lot of obfuscating waffling about your constant rate somehow magically changing. Yet again, a variable constant? Where the hell did you study math? -- I am not going to make the mistake of assuming that you had actually learned anything. Yet again, I wrote that essay! I read the 13 resources in my bibliography. Dr. Henry Morris is apparently the ultimate source for your human population growth claim, so you really should learn what his model was. I present his treatment of his idea starting from his 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, up to three of his presentation of it in the mid-1970's and ending with another presentation in 1985; it's all right there in the bibliography. I chased down some of his own sources (though I learned when researching his moondust claim that he could not be trusted to have actually read or even looked at the sources that he "cited", but then that's common for creationists) and compared what they were claimed to have said v what they actually said. And I cited critics of the model.But of course you didn't understand any of it. Assuming that you had even attempted to actually read it. Back to the island yet again!That population of no more than 100 people could live on that island for over 50,000 with effective zero population growth. Please explain why that could not be the case.Your claim is pure bullshit. The basis for your claim is pure bullshit. In order to try to defend your claim you have to resort to pure bullshit.Cut the shit and realize that you have no clue what you are talking about.

Try to learn how to read so that I do not have to repeatedly explain the glaringly obvious to you over and over and over ....You even have trouble parsing English? But it's your native language! Are you that hopeless?Go back to school. Get remedial training in reading. And in math! At the very least, learn what a constant is.And learn to think! Yes, I do realize that for you thinking is a sin, perhaps even one of the Deadly Sins, but you really do need to learn how to think.And stay away from "creation science". That crap will rot your brain out faster than anything else can.Edited by dwise1, : think!

Your point was nonsense to begin with and it is still nonsense. As we have repeatedly pointed out and explained to you over and over and over again. That's odd, because when I wrote back in 1991 it was precisely for the purpose of addressing your point. Are you naturally an idiot or do you just work extra hard at being one?And if you have not bothered to read it, then how could you claim to know everything about it? Do you also have delusions of godhood and believe yourself to be omniscient? No, that is a lie. We know that it is a lie because we have answered your "point" more than a dozen times and have explained it to you just as many times.You have already received your answer, but you just wish to ignore it. Since you have ignored your answer for more than a dozen times, we see no reason to believe that you will not continue to ignore it the next six dozen times.You're just being an idiot, which appears to be your MO here and, I would guess, in the rest of your life. How's that working for you?Also, you have never answered my question!. Where did you learn your distorted form of math in which constants are variable? Which I now follow with the question: Is it too late for you to get a refund from that school for having mis-educated you?Now, since you keep displaying an ignorance of mathematics, let me point out something to you about your own equation that I'm sure you've never heard before:P = P₀e^rtFor r > 0, the curve is an exponential increase.
For r < 0, the curve is an exponential decay (ie, values get progressively lower)
For r = 0, the curve is a straight horizontal line.Furthermore, the value of r is defined as the difference between the birth rate, b, and the death rate, d, such that r = (b - d) (we already saw this in Olnick's books and in that Wikipedia article). Therefore:
If there are more births than deaths, then b > d and r > 0 and the population increases.
If there are more deaths than births, then b < d and r < 0 and the population decreases.
If there are the same number of births as there are of deaths, then b = d and r = 0 and the population remains constant with effective zero population growth.Simple mathematics. Do the math. The recorded reports of human population is part of history, which only came into existence with the invention of writing, which did not happen until shortly after 3000 BCE. That means that our records of human population levels are less than 5000 years old. That only covers one tenth of the time span that your "point" is talking about.The invention of writing -- and hence of population level records -- came after the formation of cities, which itself came after the development of agriculture and of the domestication of livestock. All of those inventions had dramatic effects on a group of people's ability to become larger, for a population to grow beyond its earlier limits. Certainly far beyond the ability of a hunter-gatherer society to grow a larger population.We have historical records and direct observations of all kinds of subsistence methods, so we both know that they exist and we also know their economics. We know that in every society they need to obtain their means of subsistence from the land and that different types of societies with different levels of technology will be able to support different population sizes from a given area of land.In gaming, there is a discipline called "world building", in which they take the rules of reality to come up with an artificial world in which to set their game. They take this discipline very seriously and have studied the factors extensively, drawing from scholarly works and historical records. This is from a classic essay, "From Land to Subsistence" (http://tinybatman.com/add/library/land_to_subsistence.htm):

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DENSITY = reference population density per squaremile or squarekm in reference situation: no wasteland, no uninhabited land, yield=1. Density depends on the subsistance type of the culture. You can also figure the effect of technology and crop cycles in here.

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Subsistence density	sqmil density	sqkm
Nomad                       5            2
Seminomad                  10            4
Semisedentary              50           20
Sedentary                 100           40
Industrial                more         more

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Here are some population densities (actual average densities, _not_reference densities):
Arctic: 0.3 / sqmil
Kalahari desert: 1 / sqmil
Canadian praries: 2 / sqmil
Medieval England: 30 / sqmil
Modern Estonia: 88 / sqmil
Modern Hungary: 280 / sqmil
Modern Bangladesh: 2400 / sqmil

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I've seen suggestions that hunter-collectors must keep their population below about 2/sqmil or run into environmental degradation problems.

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Hunter-gatherers cannot have more than 2 to 5 people living in one square mile, meaning that with their subsistence technology they can only feed 2 to 5 people for every square mile of land. What would their daily range be? 5 to 10 miles? So a group that occupies 100 square miles can number no more than 200 to 500.How is that group supposed to experience the phenomenal exponential growth that your model demands? Oh, sure, you think, they could just split into two groups and one group can just move over to the next 100 square-mile plot, but they can't, because there's already another group occupying that land. We're right back on that island again. The land that they occupy can only support a small number of people and no more. As they grow to the maximum population size that their land can support (ie, its carrying capacity -- does that term sound at all familiar?), then their numbers will cease to increase and they will enter into a state of effective zero population growth.There is your answer yet again! Human population levels in prehistory were kept low and fairly constant by the low carrying capacities of their habitats. Population levels could only begin to increase when changes in our subsistence technology allowed the carrying capacities of our habitats to increase. But until those changes in subsistence technology happened, the ability of our populations to grow rapidly could not happen.But of course, you are yet again going to be an idiot and ignore the answer.

Liar!I have answered your fucking question! Repeatedly! You're just being idiot! And you have not yet answered MY question!ANSWER MY QUESTION, HYPOCRITE!