That's actually a common misconception. There's no proof the proportions of Parthenon especially exhibit the golden ratio, neither do the proportions of the human body. Not to mention that there are so many body parts to compare to each other lengthwise, that it's inevitable some will end up close to 1.618.
According the Wikipedia article for the golden ratio, there's a few places where it might show, but nothing too conclusive. In my opinion, it's just make-belief, people want to believe in a mysterious and divine constant guiding nature. I don't know a lot about typography, but I see no reason whatsoever to use the golden ratio to determine the proportions between sizes.
Inspired by Brown's modularscale.com, I built another viewer for golden ratios for my own use. I use them all the time in css. http://gelform.com/golden
I wish this myth would die a well-deserved death. The Golden Ratio isn't a well-kept mathematical secret behind Greek architecture, art and typography. This is New Age nonsense masquerading as science.
According the Wikipedia article for the golden ratio, there's a few places where it might show, but nothing too conclusive. In my opinion, it's just make-belief, people want to believe in a mysterious and divine constant guiding nature. I don't know a lot about typography, but I see no reason whatsoever to use the golden ratio to determine the proportions between sizes.
1: http://measureofdoubt.com/2011/08/29/lies-and-legends-about-... 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#M...