On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 12:16:05PM +1200, K. Feete wrote:
> Erik Reuter wrote:
> >I found 4 in just a few minutes of clicking (see above). The US birth
> >rate exceeds the death rate by only 0.55% (2000 est.).
>
> Using your site, I found the population growth rate for the US to be 0.91
> %. Where are you getting 0.55%?
Please read what I wrote above, I think it is clear. Your figure
includes immigrants.
>
> You can actually get the whole list of population growth rates on one
> page:
>
> http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/population_growth_rate
> .html
In the current discussion, this net population growth isn't as
illuminating as the difference between birth and death rates. If you
want to try to extrapolate trends, I think you will do much better to
ignore immigration and look at birth and death rates.
> Hmmm, the growth rate of China seems to be only 0.9, slightly
> less than that of America, and India is 1.58- considerably more,
> but not hugely. This is beginning to remind me of Mark Twain's
> adage... "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
China has a net outflux of people. US has a net influx. Again, including
migration confuses the underlying causes.
Also, you left off the % sign from your numbers. The population of China
far exceeds that of the US, so the number of people represented by a
given percentage is much greater in China than the US.
> However, I'm certainly not seeing much proof yet that the population
> growth rate of the first world is "essentially zero." If you can find
> some more convincing statistics, I'd be happy to take a look, but
> these seem to a) be flawed and b) prove my point.
I think that you need to be more careful with your thinking rather
than quoting cute little cliches about statistics. When studying the
intrinsic growth of populations, why would you want to include secondary
effects such as the flow of people between those groups? Obviously, if
the argument is that group #1 has near zero growth and group #2 will
evolve to be like the first group and have near zero growth in the
future, it is illogical to include migration from the 2nd group to the
1st group in calculating the present growth of the 1st group. (unless
your argument is that the migration is actually going to change the
underlying causes at work in the groups, in which case you need totally
different kinds of numbers to support your argument)
--
"Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.com/
