Ok Cecil answered these misguided souls in his column at http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_085.html but i am working with one. Please help me find cites to show him that the dead do indeed outnumber the living.
Here is the US census data estimates of historical world population. You’ll have to add up the numbers, using an assumed life expectancy.
If you make a conservative estimate of an average population of 200 million people for 1 to 1000 A.D., and 300 million from 1000 to 1500, and assume an average life expectancy of 50 years (probably too high, but again I’m being conservative), you get 200,000,000 * 1000 / 50 + 300,000,000 * 500 / 50 = 7,000,000,000 dead right there, which is already over the current world population.
Again my ignorance is exposed. I have quoted that ‘more people alive today than in the whole of time’ figure, without question. Only now do I realise my folly. Thankyou Cecil. I am humbled.
Hehe- on TV Bill Clinton just said ‘we need to stop people dying’. I think mortality rates remain constant at 100%, according to the onion , which is the only newspaper i trust.