Posted on 11/01/2025 10:33:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
We have to start counting from 1 again...
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Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
* While most estimates place the current human population at around 8.2 billion, a study suggests we might be vastly underrepresenting rural areas.
* By analyzing 300 rural dam projects across 35 countries, researchers from Aalto University in Finland found discrepancies among these independent population counts and other population data gathered between 1975 and 2010.
* Such underreporting could have consequences in terms of resource allocation within a country, but other experts remain skeptical that decades of population counting could be off by such a wide margin.
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Homo sapiens is the most successful mammalian species in Earth history, and it’s not even close. The species thrives on nearly every continent, in a variety of adverse conditions, and outnumbers the second-place contender—the rat—by at least a cool billion. However, a new study suggests that the impressive nature of humanity’s proliferation may have been vastly underreported.
Most estimates place Earth’s human population at around 8.2 billion, but Josias Láng-Ritter—a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University in Finland and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications—claims that these estimates could be underrepresenting rural areas by a significant margin.
“We were surprised to find that the actual population living in rural areas is much higher than the global population data indicates—depending on the dataset, rural populations have been underestimated by between 53 percent to 84 percent over the period studied,” Láng-Ritter said in a press statement. “The results are remarkable, as these datasets have been used in thousands of studies and extensively support decision-making, yet their accuracy has not been systematically evaluated.”
How exactly do you test the accuracy of global datasets used to derive population totals in the first place? Well, with a background in water resource management, Láng-Ritter looked at a different kind of population data gathered from rural dam projects—300 such projects across 35 countries, to be precise. This data focused on the years 1975 to 2010, and these population tallies provided a significant dataset to check against other population totals calculated by organizations like WorldPop, GWP, GRUMP, LandScan, and GHS-POP (which were also analyzed in this study).
“When dams are built, large areas are flooded and people need to be relocated,” Láng-Ritter said in a press statement. “The relocated population is usually counted precisely because dam companies pay compensation to those affected. Unlike global population datasets, such local impact statements provide comprehensive, on-the-ground population counts that are not skewed by administrative boundaries. We then combined these with spatial information from satellite imagery.”
Part of this discrepancy likely stems from the fact that many countries don’t have the resources for precise data collection, and difficulty traveling to far flung rural areas only exacerbates census-counting discrepancies. A widespread underrepresentation of rural populations across the world could have profound impacts on those communities, as censuses are central to figuring out how to divvy up resources.
However, not everyone is convinced by this research. Stuart Gietel-Basten from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology told New Scientist that while increased investment in rural population data collection would be beneficial, the idea that Earth could contain a few billion more human inhabitants that we thought is extremely unlikely. “If we really are undercounting by that massive amount, it’s a massive news story and goes against all the years of thousands of other datasets.”
When trying to count such a massive population, a few hundred or maybe even a few thousand may slip through the cracks. But a few million or even billion would upend our understanding of human occupation on this planet. Scientists will need a bit more evidence before rethinking decades of dataset research.
Starting over again at 1? Ok arm raised. Present and still breathing!
“dam companies pay compensation ... on-the-ground population counts that are not skewed”. How does paying the counted not skew the count?
This article is not worth dam. In my experience in the US both over-counts and undercounts are admitted with the hope that they offset each other, which they more or less do in the larger population, but not in local population counts.
Sometimes college students, out-of-town workers are counted twice (just as they are registered to vote twice). Sometimes they are not counted because neither counting jurisdiction thinks they should be the ones to count them.
Sometimes legal and illegal immigrants are not counted, sometimes counted twice. Mexican Presidents Fox and Calderon won because they won the vote of Mexicans in the US. They are often counted by both countries.
Is the Pope counted in both the South side of Chicago, South America and the Vatican? By some, yes. The same is true of missionaries, traveling evangelists and salesmen (evangelists for their product).
Some people are just hard to count. They are recluse, homeless, fugitives and do not want to be counted .. or their presence acknowledged.
I knew two census taker friends who each worked half of the area I worked door-to-door for both politics, protest organizations, and insurance investigations. We would talk and compare notes. One was much better and seeing people and consciously choosing whether to count them or not. The other had a personality that made a lot of assumpti0ons and bias.
Sci fi writers aren't right in the head to begin with.
China, as a inherently lying socialist country, has strategically overestimated its population.
That I have no doubt, I have big doubts about the current numbers is all.
One would think that every country would want a complete and accurate census of its population, then just add them all up!.............
Stand on Zanzibar.
The Georgia Guidestones want human population down to 500 million. It is necessary to know accurate totals to inject everyone with the vaccine bioweapon.
Don’t tell the WEF and Bill Gates of Hell, or they will try harder to kill us......
How on earth did they miss so badly.
It’s so simple. Count the number of legs and divide by two.
,,, even there, 53 to 84 is a big window. Let's not pay attention to anything like this until "scientists" can get to a single number.
quote “The relocated population is usually counted precisely because dam companies pay compensation to those affected”
there is your answer, hidden deep in the article.
since dam companies pay compensation to those affected... magically those affected went up dramatically.
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Yep… kinda like when a Baltimore metro bus is involved in an accident, the number of passengers on that bus quickly increases. It’s MAGIC!
Most countries have one or more methods to estimate populatuon: census, survey, and vital registration; so, the statistics can be compared. While we don’t know exactly how many people at any given time, I don’t think the estimates are off by several billions.
I have a sneaky feeling that the term “scientist” is being used recklessly these days.
“Scientists May Have Severely Miscalculated How Many...”
Indeed. The number of adherents leaving Islam in America is now estimated to be 100,000 apostates annually and rising. Islam membership is now in a downward spiral in America. The leftists and mohammadens say that the apostate number can be balanced by new Islam recruits, but neither group offers any evidence to support that assertion.
Math is racist.
Stop If we cannot count them right, how are they eating, working, living.....we don’t need government!
”Well. Dude, we just don’t know.”
You’d think. I’d think the same thing except we’re warring against principalities and powers.
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