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Re:Fibonacci Flim Flam by VMG on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @01:52AM (#10150934)
> I'm no less interested in Fibonacci numbers, their occurrence (alongside other patterns) in nature

Can you name an example of where it occurs?

Re:Fibonacci Flim Flam by jMyles on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @02:00AM (#10150950)
...yes, of course. Are you saying that the article claims that there are no examples? Because it doesn't say that.

> "This is one part of nature where the fibonacci sequence and related sequences seem to show up uncommonly often, and it's legitimate to inquire why. The interesting cases are seedheads in plants such as sunflowers, and the bract patterns of pinecones and pineapples."

Reducing seedhead patterns to "one part of nature" is obviously loaded verbage, but even if it weren't, I still don't understand what "flim flam" this is debunking.

Re:Fibonacci Flim Flam by tizzdogg on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @02:48AM (#10151034)
He then spends the next few paragraphs going into detail about why seedheads actually DONT typically display Fibonacci patterns. The cases where they happen to look like Fibonacci spirals are coincidences. Those random coincidences then get cherry-picked by people who want to say that fibonacci patterns are found all the time in plants and other places and are some sort of mystical law of nature.

> The pattern of seeds seldom comes out perfectly matched to the golden ratio in the sunflower, but when it is very close, those are the seed heads that get photographed for "gee-whiz" articles about Fibonacci numbers.