This might have already been said above, but there is a large difference between talking about the golden ratio and fractals, etc in nature: the latter comes from models. Fractals naturally arise from simple models which involve branching. Certain evolved structures, like lungs, effectively have no other choice but to be fractal-like.
Most of the golden ratio examples are more like: “I think it’s about 1.6” But there are lots of numbers near 1.6. Why would it be (1+sqrt(5))/2 in particular?
