I can’t remember where I read this, but if carefully managed, humanity, in a highly controlled environment, could start off with as little as around 36 individuals. But population and reproduction would have to be highly controlled for dozens of generations before we could breed freely. this is all purely from a genetic standpoint.
And, of course, we would have to be in an environment where we wouldn’t worry about food or pathogens or predators, or anything else that might be a threat to our survival— including each other, or, possibly, ourselves.
The comment you were responding to is estimating a necessary population that takes into account a lot of other environmental factors.
You’re going to need more diversity than just genetic. With that few people, you’re going to need doctors, mechanics, scientists, farmers, people with knowledge that can help the colony prosper and prevent what we thinknof as easily prevented diseases and injuries and illnesses.
For example, there’s a pretty good percentage of potentially fatal issues during childbirth. Just a few of those and you’re greatly impacting your genetic diversity. Immunizations and medicine needs all sorts of production facilities and raw materials, so it’s not just “maybe a doc can help me not die giving birth or at least let me try again.” Sure, we’re animals that can handle some of that naturally, but with that slim of a margin, it’s going to be impactful.
Even if we started with as genetically diverse set of 120 people as we could manage?
I can’t remember where I read this, but if carefully managed, humanity, in a highly controlled environment, could start off with as little as around 36 individuals. But population and reproduction would have to be highly controlled for dozens of generations before we could breed freely. this is all purely from a genetic standpoint.
And, of course, we would have to be in an environment where we wouldn’t worry about food or pathogens or predators, or anything else that might be a threat to our survival— including each other, or, possibly, ourselves.
The comment you were responding to is estimating a necessary population that takes into account a lot of other environmental factors.
All Native Americans were decended from a population of 70 that crossed the Bering land bridge.
https://www.livescience.com/289-north-america-settled-70-people-study-concludes.html
You’re going to need more diversity than just genetic. With that few people, you’re going to need doctors, mechanics, scientists, farmers, people with knowledge that can help the colony prosper and prevent what we thinknof as easily prevented diseases and injuries and illnesses.
For example, there’s a pretty good percentage of potentially fatal issues during childbirth. Just a few of those and you’re greatly impacting your genetic diversity. Immunizations and medicine needs all sorts of production facilities and raw materials, so it’s not just “maybe a doc can help me not die giving birth or at least let me try again.” Sure, we’re animals that can handle some of that naturally, but with that slim of a margin, it’s going to be impactful.
If you cherry picked you’d likely be fine.