Quizzes & Puzzles7 mins ago
What Is This Shape Called?
In the centre of a sunflower is a seed pattern similar to the shape of a galaxy seen side-on, or the sparks from a Catherine wheel firework, like the beginning of lots of rotating spirals all starting out from the same central point. Does this form have name please?
Answers
Best reference to a name that I can find is Fibonacci spirals. I doubt the pattern of a sunflower seed head, which exhibits multiple such spirals, has been given a name.
07:18 Wed 12th Jul 2017
mibn..; //The problem at the heart of 'intelligent design' is that it offers no explanation for how an alleged 'intelligent designer' came to exist,//
A specious argument; you get in your car, turn on the ignition, the engine starts and off you drive without the necessity of concerning yourself as to how it was all designed to do so or who designed it, but of one thing you are certain, such complexity didn't all happen by accident.
A specious argument; you get in your car, turn on the ignition, the engine starts and off you drive without the necessity of concerning yourself as to how it was all designed to do so or who designed it, but of one thing you are certain, such complexity didn't all happen by accident.
//you get in your car, turn on the ignition, the engine starts and off you drive without the necessity of concerning yourself as to how it was all designed to do so or who designed it, but of one thing you are certain, such complexity didn't all happen by accident.//
But when I turn the key and it doesn't start . . . I begin to wonder.
But when I turn the key and it doesn't start . . . I begin to wonder.
"Intelligent Design" is simply creationism wearing a different overcoat.
The reason there is no need is that we have a simple yet feasible explanation that doesn't require a designer. One that seems to be supported by watching live change in response to changing conditions.
I suspect the spiral probably works out to be the most efficient way or one of the most efficient ways, to position a lot of seeds in the flower.
A car does not create lots of newer, not quite the same cars, that have to survive in the environment it is in: so the comparison doesn't work. One needs continuous variety, a filtering mechanism, and loads of time. Doesn't apply to cars.
The reason there is no need is that we have a simple yet feasible explanation that doesn't require a designer. One that seems to be supported by watching live change in response to changing conditions.
I suspect the spiral probably works out to be the most efficient way or one of the most efficient ways, to position a lot of seeds in the flower.
A car does not create lots of newer, not quite the same cars, that have to survive in the environment it is in: so the comparison doesn't work. One needs continuous variety, a filtering mechanism, and loads of time. Doesn't apply to cars.
m. //But when I turn the key and it doesn't start . . . I begin to wonder.//
I used to have a car like that. :0)
OG, As usual, you will twist and turn and do anything to shoehorn the facts to fit into your 'top-down' agenda. You are stuck with question "how?" when should also be asking the more vital question, "why?"
I used to have a car like that. :0)
OG, As usual, you will twist and turn and do anything to shoehorn the facts to fit into your 'top-down' agenda. You are stuck with question "how?" when should also be asking the more vital question, "why?"
// You are stuck with question "how?" when should also be asking the more vital question, "why?"//
Why not?
Not particularly in the mood for yet another "discussion" that ends up with both sides in exactly the same position as before. One thing I would like to add is that I've always thought intelligent design to be somewhat premature in giving up hope in alternatives. Some structure or other is described as irreducibly complex without really putting in the effort to show otherwise; some pattern is seen as necessarily designed, when it is later shown that it can emerge naturally from basic requirements. So ID advocates move on to the next unexplained thing, and don't allow enough time for the alternative non-ID explanation to be discovered.
Fibonacci sequences in nature are, I think, slightly less common than is often made out anyway. Several famous examples are, in fact, only approximately Fibonacci-esque, and sometimes it's a very bad approximation anyway. But where it does work it can emerge fairly naturally from the general principle that nature likes to do things as efficiently as possible. That efficiency doesn't *need* a plan, it just happens.
It's worth bearing in mind the useful rule of thumb that "The Universe is the way it is probably because it's just lazy" (which is my paraphrasing of an actual scientific principle, namely "Hamilton's Stationary Action Principle" if you want to look it up). This works rather well; no designer needed.
Why not?
Not particularly in the mood for yet another "discussion" that ends up with both sides in exactly the same position as before. One thing I would like to add is that I've always thought intelligent design to be somewhat premature in giving up hope in alternatives. Some structure or other is described as irreducibly complex without really putting in the effort to show otherwise; some pattern is seen as necessarily designed, when it is later shown that it can emerge naturally from basic requirements. So ID advocates move on to the next unexplained thing, and don't allow enough time for the alternative non-ID explanation to be discovered.
Fibonacci sequences in nature are, I think, slightly less common than is often made out anyway. Several famous examples are, in fact, only approximately Fibonacci-esque, and sometimes it's a very bad approximation anyway. But where it does work it can emerge fairly naturally from the general principle that nature likes to do things as efficiently as possible. That efficiency doesn't *need* a plan, it just happens.
It's worth bearing in mind the useful rule of thumb that "The Universe is the way it is probably because it's just lazy" (which is my paraphrasing of an actual scientific principle, namely "Hamilton's Stationary Action Principle" if you want to look it up). This works rather well; no designer needed.
OG; I don't expect you lash out and buy the book I have referred to above, but here is one appraisal you may care to look at;
https:/
There are also others, call me a moron, but to me it all seems as obvious as a bulldogs boll*cks. :0)
https:/
There are also others, call me a moron, but to me it all seems as obvious as a bulldogs boll*cks. :0)
"Wilczek does not require beautiful theories to be true; he requires them to be useful." Practical for applied science/engineering but not so helpful when trying to uncover reality.
To be honest I have about 700 unread books in the attic from a deceased relative, not to mention a pile of books I bought for myself and not got around to; but I suspect you wiill be quoting from the book where useful anyway.
To be honest I have about 700 unread books in the attic from a deceased relative, not to mention a pile of books I bought for myself and not got around to; but I suspect you wiill be quoting from the book where useful anyway.
//call me a moron, but to me it all seems as obvious as a bulldogs boll*cks. :0)//
Specious - 1. apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible: specious arguments. 2. pleasing to the eye but deceptive.
Well, I can hardly qualify that as //A specious argument// then.
Specious - 1. apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible: specious arguments. 2. pleasing to the eye but deceptive.
Well, I can hardly qualify that as //A specious argument// then.
I don't think there's anything in that book that suggests that the beautiful is deliberate. Quite the opposite, if anything. "Beauty", where it exists in physics, is there because it works.
But also it does not. There's a certain irony in your constant lambasting of CERN when you also support one of the people whose work is being so diligently tested there; you may be disappointed to know that (so far) the "ultimate beauty" of Supersymmetry has not shown up yet, despite our best efforts to find hints of its existence.
But also it does not. There's a certain irony in your constant lambasting of CERN when you also support one of the people whose work is being so diligently tested there; you may be disappointed to know that (so far) the "ultimate beauty" of Supersymmetry has not shown up yet, despite our best efforts to find hints of its existence.
jim do they know that you are a theoretical physicist not by Intelligent Design but because you went to uni and read the books ?
give him hell all of you -
OG's point // The reason there is no need is that we have a simple yet feasible explanation that doesn't require a designer.// is an expression of something called Naturalism - here
//https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)
if you want to look it up
natural phenomena can be explained first by natural laws and if not then only an appeal to divine intervention
Came to the fore in the 1830s in Geology in Cambridge - Lyell and Sedgwick - who were ter daah priests ( protestant of course - Cambridge is a protestant university ) - explained geological discontinuities ( the wrong strata being on top) in terms of gradual change and not divine intervention ( which was not needed as gradual change was observed)
Once you accept that the Intelligent Designer is re-designing the whole time, there is room to wonder if anything else is at work - helping him or perhaps doing the whole thing
give him hell all of you -
OG's point // The reason there is no need is that we have a simple yet feasible explanation that doesn't require a designer.// is an expression of something called Naturalism - here
//https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)
if you want to look it up
natural phenomena can be explained first by natural laws and if not then only an appeal to divine intervention
Came to the fore in the 1830s in Geology in Cambridge - Lyell and Sedgwick - who were ter daah priests ( protestant of course - Cambridge is a protestant university ) - explained geological discontinuities ( the wrong strata being on top) in terms of gradual change and not divine intervention ( which was not needed as gradual change was observed)
Once you accept that the Intelligent Designer is re-designing the whole time, there is room to wonder if anything else is at work - helping him or perhaps doing the whole thing
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