Beautiful Australian Bees

Image courtesy of James Dorey, Flinders University, fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

He has made everything beautiful in its time . This is what the book of Ecclesiastes 3.11 says what God has made. the bees of Australia are a site to be honoured for.

The evolution of the bees is clouded in mystery.


Source:

Saplakoglu,Yasemin. 2020.Gorgeous images of Australian 'rainbow' bees will blow your mind. Live Science, 14 July.

Fractals in Nature Defy Darwinian Assumptions

Baobabs, like other trees, follow a sophisticated mathematical formula. Image courtesy of Fox-Talbot, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

In his book River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins wrote: "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good.”

But is this really so?

It is practically impossible to ignore the fine tuning that we see all around us, from the minuscule to the really huge.

It comes in many forms, for instance in Fibonacci numbers and fractals.

Polish mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (1924–2010) coined the term fractal in 1975.

Geometric shapes known as Mandelbrot sets are everywhere in nature, and what is special about them is that many of them repeat themselves on a smaller scale, and then even smaller, often producing a soothing effect.

This does not look like the cold, callous Darwinian world. The real world is full of beauty, regardless of where we look.

Sources:

Dawkins, Richard. 1999.River Out of Eden. London: Phoenix.

Lisle, Jason. 2007. Fractals: Hidden Beauty Revealed in Mathematics. Answers 2 (1), 52–55.

We Can’t Ignore Cosmic Fine Tuning, Astrophysics Professor Says

We can see fine tuning in things like ferns, for instance.




Joel Kontinen

Fine tuning is an enormous hurdle for the naturalistic worldview.

We see it everywhere, from the tiny to the huge, and it is often displayed as great beauty, as in fractals, Fibonacci numbers and the golden rule that are practically ubiquitous in the universe.

Writing in New Scientist, Geraint Lewis, who is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney, takes the naturalist bull by the horns and suggests that the universe “may be fine-tuned for life. The idea is that physical laws and constants are inexplicably just right to support it.”

He says that this view is becoming more popular and thinks that a heated debate may be just round the proverbial corner.

Some agnostics and atheists would want to explain away the fine tuning by invoking the multiverse, which, as astronomer Danny R. Faulkner puts it, is “a radical departure into philosophy or religion” and is not science at all.

There’s only one logical explanation for all this fine tuning: “In the beginning God created.”

Source:

Lewis, Geraint. 2017. A fine-tuned universe may be controversial but can’t be ignored. New Scientist (28 June).

Fractals: Complex, Soothing Beauty in Nature

Fractals are seen in fern leaves.




Joel Kontinen

First, we see an overall pattern. Then, when we take a closer look, we see that the very same pattern is repeated at a smaller scale, and then on an even smaller one.

These patterns are called fractals and they occur everywhere in nature, from fern leaves to the branches of a tree, snowflakes, ocean waves, animal colouration patterns and even Saturn’s rings.

Writing in The Conversation, University of Oregon physics professor Richard Taylor describes this phenomenon:

“My scientific curiosity was stirred when I learned that many of nature's objects are fractal, featuring patterns that repeat at increasingly fine magnifications. For example, think of a tree. First you see the big branches growing out of the trunk. Then you see smaller versions growing out of each big branch. As you keep zooming in, finer and finer branches appear, all the way down to the smallest twigs. Other examples of nature's fractals include clouds, rivers, coastlines and mountains.”

Fractals are often seen in tree branches. Image courtesy of Ronan, Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

The great beauty we see everywhere in nature, for instance in the form of fractals, the golden ratio or Fibonacci numbers, challenges naturalistic thinking.

Even in a world that is groaning from the consequences of the Fall, we see amazing beauty in all kinds of everything, from giant galaxies to deep sea creatures.

Source:

Taylor, Richard. 2017. Fractal patterns in nature and art are aesthetically pleasing and stress-reducing. The Conversation (31 March).