Beauty and Pattern in Math and Science

[davecarlson]

@thoughtful

Examples?

Peacock jumping spider mating dances!

Pompilid wasps preying on tarantulas!

Evening primroses in bloom!

Edit: After spending hundreds of hours looking for them for my research, all evening primroses are beautiful to me; however I will concede that the last photo I posted is lacking in the aesthetic department. Here is a better one:

[Timothy_Horton]

Hard to believe it’s been 50 years since John Conway first produced his digital Game Of Life.

John Conway’s Game of Life

The Game of Life is not your typical computer game. It is a cellular automaton, and was invented by Cambridge mathematician John Conway.

This game became widely known when it was mentioned in an article published by Scientific American in 1970. It consists of a collection of cells which, based on a few mathematical rules, can live, die or multiply. Depending on the initial conditions, the cells form various patterns throughout the course of the game.

I spent many hours playing with it as an undergrad, completely fascinated with its many unexpected patterns and behavior. If anyone wants to fool around with it here is a nice online version with lots of helpful starting patterns.

John Conway’s Game Of Life

[thoughtful (Valerie (non-scientist))]

@thoughtful

@John_Harshman

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.”

That actually brought tears to my eyes as I typed it.

Thank you for answering all my questions. That’s beautifully written. Who wrote the quote?

I knew I liked you. I love the word grandeur.

One of my favorite poems. Maybe you will appreciate the avian references? Sadly I have a book of his poetry from my college days, and I haven’t read the thing. It has to go on my reading list.

God’s Grandeur - Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

@swamidass

To pull this together @thoughtful, that quote was by Charles Darwin, and he was describing evolution as God’s way of creating endless forms, which was far more beautiful than a fixed and limited number of “kinds.”

I had a lightbulb moment this morning. Hopkins’ poem is a response to Darwinism. Because of course it is - only written 18 years after the Origin of the Species.

I had studied it in college, but I don’t remember discussing this aspect. But the poem really emphasized the difference in worldviews.

Underlying Darwin’s beautifully written sentence about God using evolution, is a tragic ugliness: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”

Hopkins thought much differently. The poem shows that in spite of man’s “progress” God renews and freshens creation in order to proclaim His character. A Darwinian worldview is God using death for animal and human progress. It’s not surprising then I like the poem, as I also like to illustrate God’s character in poetry by appreciating beauty in nature.

This is why I tried to explain that I view evolutionary creationism as illogical and not compatible with God’s character; ultimately I view evolution/death as progress versus death as ugliness as the result of sin as two fundamentally different ideas about who God is and who He says He is in the Bible.

This was fascinating: Charles Darwin in a Hopkins World

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@thoughtful

Underlying Darwin’s beautifully written sentence about God using evolution, is a tragic ugliness: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”

For the record, that isn’t how evolution proceeds.

But doesn’t that sound a lot like this?

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Seems like the God we find by Jesus likes redeeming the things we reject, in ways we do not expect.

@thoughtful

This is why I tried to explain that I view evolutionary creationism as illogical and not compatible with God’s character;

I agree it isn’t compatible with the man-made god’s we imagine. But it is very compatible with the God of Scripture.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@thoughtful

This is why I tried to explain that I view evolutionary creationism as illogical and not compatible with God’s character; ultimately I view evolution/death as progress versus death as ugliness as the result of sin as two fundamentally different ideas about who God is and who He says He is in the Bible.

So, this came up in the Q&A time in the podcast today. What do you think? Unapologetic Apologists: Why Would GOD Use Evolution?

[thoughtful (Valerie (non-scientist))]

@swamidass

For the record, that isn’t how evolution proceeds.

I have yet to distinguish current evolutionary thought from Darwinian evolution because I’m not familiar enough with each.

@swamidass

But doesn’t that sound a lot like this?

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

The difference is in how we view death. If we view it as the result of our sin, then doesn’t that give God more glory for enduring it?

Death as the result of sin: God sacrificed himself for the ugliness that we brought on the world, and it’s the sacrifice that’s beautiful not the death.
Death as a pattern: Christ’s death itself was beautiful.

The Bible passage says the cross was shameful and something to endure.

Perhaps I’m not understanding your suggestion.

@swamidass

So, this came up in the Q&A time in the podcast today. What do you think? Unapologetic Apologists: Why Would GOD Use Evolution?

I’ll listen