Fascinating.
Have at it Laz
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
I’ll do my best, but the kids are going to have to figure out step 2 on their own.
With 2 people its pretty unlikely without divine intervention. the odds increase a lot with every doubling of the number of people.
I know that for populating an alien planet, theorists say that around 40,000 is ideal.
Not anymore.
No more than two poodles can repopulate the earth with wolves.
The original two? Yes.
A few differences between now and Genesis:
They lived much longer and were fertile much longer.
Disease and genetic weakness was not yet present.
Today the couple would have to live in a very moderate, if not sub-tropical climate, or they couldn’t endure the workload.
No, it means they would be on a no-gluten diet. What an ignorant comment.
I was about to point out how stupid the genomics professor was for not knowing that the chromosomes from the pollen and ova mix and that this would mean that each seed was different. But before I posted I found out that almost all dandelions in North America are asexual and reproduce through parthenogenesis. This counts as the something new I learned today - dandelions aren't heterosexual.
“CAN TWO PEOPLE REPOPULATE EARTH?”
Only if all of the lawyers are dead.
I have read the work of a credible geneticist where he said at the end of the last Ice Age there were fewer than 8000 homo sapiens left on the earth. I believe that is supportable science. Statistically that small number could repopulate the earth. Intelligence is the deciding factor and almost always will prevail.
Would be interesting to know how genetically divergent two people could be and still be unquestionably “human”, providing enough genetic diversity to avoid ill effects thru the first few generations.
A friend has 15 kids (and runs a family farm, and runs a retail business, and ...). Optimistically keep that up, and 2 become 5000+ in just 4 generations.
Of course, that requires a great survival infrastructure which, under the indicated circumstances, one may not plan on.
No, 2 “people” can not repopulate the erf. A man and a woman can, though. Point being... the entire meaning of life... to sustain the species... there is a reason homosexuality is laughable, at the least.
If I were the last man on earth stuck with Lena Dunham...Sorry folks. That’s the end of us puny humans.
Given the available resources - wood and metal in particular - repopulating the world after a catastrophe that wiped out people but left the infrastructure might be comparatively smooth. I think it would be easy to produce ten or more surviving children per couple in each generation, if the new Adam and Even had not gotten themselves snipped. That gives generations of:
1 - 10
2 - 50
3 - 250
4 - 1250
5 - 6,250
6 - 31,250
7 - 156,250
8 - 781,250
9 - 3,906,250
10 - 19,531,250
Essentially, after ten generations or about 300 years, the population would again pass 20 million. Genetic inbreeding issues would produce some unfortunate results, but I would expect natural selection (and informed marital choices by those prone to certain conditions) to limit the rate for those problems.