The British biologist J. S. B. Haldane used to say that if biology had taught him anything about the nature of the Creator, it was that he had “an inordinate fondness for beetles.” If we can learn a similar lesson from astronomy it might be that God has has an inordinate fondness for the color beige.

The picture below is the average color of the universe.

According to NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” website:

More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted above, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. To determine this, astronomers computationally averaged the light emitted by one of the largest sample of galaxies yet analyzed: the 200,000 galaxies of the 2dF survey. The resulting cosmic spectrum has some emission in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but a single perceived composite color. This color has become much less blue over the past 10 billion years, indicating that redder stars are becoming more prevalent.

God love beetles, beige, and me, this I know for—if scientists and childhood nursery hymns are too be believed—biology, astronomy, and the Bible tells me so.

(Via: The Presurfer)