And in a way it is very analogous, in the flower and the insect, you have a life form sending out a probe into the universe, a probe designed for reproduction. The flower is a specialized sexual organ, the adult insect the sexually mature reproductive phase of the the animal. In both cases, the organ system/organism is a specialized structure optimized for a specific role. Its previous forms only allowed the final shape to evolve.

The Webb is not designed for reproduction, of course, but its form all folded up in the launch vehicle is very different from its final configuration when it arrives at its destination and begins its mission.

Its at times like this when I'm really proud to be a member of a species capable of doing this. Its our Parthenon, our Brandenburg Concertos, our Odyssey. This, and other things like this, are the very best we can do, they are what we will be remembered for a thousand years from now.

John Ruskin, in 1851, must have had similar feelings when he contemplated what he felt had been his civilization's greatest triumph, the Ship of the Line, the big three deckers that dominated European navies for over two centuries:

"For one thing this century will in after ages be considered to have done in a superb manner and one thing I think only. . . it will always be said of us, with unabated reverence,`They built ships of the Line.' Take it all in all, a ship of the Line is the most honorable thing that man as a gregarious animal has ever produced. By himself, unhelped, he can do better things than ships of the line; he can make poems and pictures, and other such concentrations of what is best in him. But as a being living in flocks, and hammering out, with alternate strokes and mutual agreement, what is necessary for him in those flocks to get or produce the ship of the line is his first work. Into that he has put as much of his human patience, common sense, forethought, experimental philosophy, self control, habits of order and obedience, thoroughly wrought handwork, defiance of brute elements, careless courage, careful patriotism, and calm expectation of the judgement of God, as can well be put into a space of 300 feet long by 80 broad. And I am thankful to have lived in an age when I could see this thing so done"