Could the population of the world, currently sitting at 7.7 Billion, have truly been created by 8 individuals that survived the biblical global flood?  What does science say on the matter?

Excerpt from the book The True Nature Of Human Nature

What does faith do to a person?  How does it enslave the mind?  A perfect example of faith gone wrong is the flood account. After the flood, the bible states that only eight people survived the incident.  Is that enough for our species to have propagated to the magnitude that we see today?  I tried to do the calculation, but none of them included death via accidental causes, natural disasters and genocide and did not include the compounding of generations and also failed to take into account of the sudden exponential growth rate, starting at the industrial revolution.  Such a calculation is very complicated, so I went to http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#pastfuture for answers.  Using mathematical algorithms, trusted sources such as the US Census Bureau and population milestones from historical archives it indicated that to conceive a society of our current size, there would need to be approximately 6.5 million people on earth at around 4,500 years ago. 

This form of detective work illustrates the main point of contention with religion and science.   As stated earlier, science evaluates a hypothesis through experiment, experimentation and peer review.  Religion, on the other hand, decides what is true in the first place and then looks for scientific facts or any facts in general, to prop up its astonishing claims regardless how silly it may sound, an autonomic reverse thinking of sorts.