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You have seen two recursive definitions: one for powerOfTwo and
one for rabbits. Many mathematically oriented programmers
prefer
such recursive definitions to iterative definitions, when both are
possible, believing that there is inherent elegance in defining a method
partly in terms of itself.
Other, practically oriented programmers dislike recursive definitions for one or both of two reasons: first, the recursive approach usually produces much slower programs, because each send operation takes time; and second, the recursive approach may have problems with large arguments, because the number of send operations in a recursive chain of sends is usually limited to a few hundred. Recursion aficionados counter by creating compilers that handle certain recursive methods in sophisticated ways that avoid such limits.