Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Worlds Population - Think About It!

Not too long ago I had read somewhere that approximately 85% of ALL the people who have ever lived, are alive today. It took me back - I mean - I didn't know what to make of it. Dealing in the world of statistics, I was skeptical. Mark Twain once said, "there are 3 kinds of lies: 1) lies, 2) damn lies, and 3) statistics".

So this morning I didn't have any meetings, no calls, no nothin. I went to google and typed in something like "world population", and got, as you can imagine, all kinds of hits. But none that validated this statistic. I took what I found in various places and created a spreadsheet.

Starting at zero (0) AD (the time of Christs birth), I loaded what experts believe was the total global population by year - in 50 year increments. I was able to back into the number of births and deaths to arrive at the net increase or decrease in the total population. And I did that all the way to today, and through 2050. It's a beautiful spreadsheet - a piece of art really.

Guess what? 83% of ALL people who have lived (were born) since the time of Christ, are alive today. Mull that over in your head. Get your arms around it. At 6 billion people on the globe, 83%, since Jesus was born in Bethlehem - are alive - NOW.

Should this change anything we do, how we think, where we go, who we talk to, what we say?

Scot

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You amaze me... ;)
Keep it up.

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