# \[Parody\] The iPhone turns out to have evolved naturally **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 23, 2017, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937 "2017-07-23T13:26:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/21 "2017-07-25T08:50:15Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What about those who believe gay people should be discriminated against? Is it wrong to assert that such discrimination is “immoral behavior”? The important thing to remember is that _we’re_ the real bigots for calling bigots bigots. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/22 "2018-12-31T05:08:35Z")
So, is the obvious truth (evident to Christians but not to non-Christians) of the article that God is like Steve Jobs? Jobs didn’t invent the iPhone all by himself, so the real truth must be that God had help in creating the universe. The Big Bang was actually the very first corporation. Thus, Adam and Eve were the first prototypes of humans, which means humans were upgraded throughout their existence, which is the same as Evolution! I’d be just as likely to believe the Babylon Bee writers are secretly evolutionists as I would that Onion writers are secretly creationists. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/23 "2018-12-31T11:01:24Z")
I’m reminded of an excellent Cracked article on “conservative humor”: [5 Awful (But Revealing) Examples Of Conservative Comedy | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-awful-but-revealing-examples-conservative-comedy/) > [@](#): > > Hopefully you’re starting to see why conservative comedy is hard, if not impossible. Like every time you’re mocking things from the dumb side, Ben Garrison’s comedy options were limited to calling everyone a liar, arguing how evil things are fine, or meekly insulting the other guys. None of those are very funny, and the best-case scenario is that they distract your audience from the premise of your own joke. Just sayin’. It’s not funny because the premise is meant as an absurdist dig, but that dig doesn’t actually make a lick of sense to people who passed grade school biology lessons. It’s like a whole article premosed around debunking relativity using the “train on a train” thought experiment - funny only to those who buy this absolute garbage thought experiment. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/24 "2018-12-31T12:40:15Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > On the bottom of the home page it says, “The Babylon Bee is Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.”, so yes, it is like the Onion. It’s _The Onion_ sans humor. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/25 "2018-12-31T13:22:54Z")
Somehow creationists find the idea of a slow natural process that takes millions of years more absurd than an invisible omnipotent sky creature that can do it all with a snap of his fingers. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/26 "2018-12-31T14:45:56Z")
Of course, Samuel Butler made the same joke 150 years ago, so the idea is not exactly fresh. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/27 "2018-12-31T15:22:02Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > It’s _The Onion_ sans humor. Now, now–you are missing brilliantly-written bits of satire such as [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/waiting-period-mandated-for-nerf-gun-purchases): > [@](#): > > Taking on a previously unregulated weapon, the federal government has instituted a five-day waiting period for all Nerf guns. “We decided it was time to act when we noticed how large the ammo is,” explained bureaucrat Joseph Clarkson. “The darts it fires are far larger than the average bullet, which must mean it’s a far deadlier weapon… as far as we understand things or care to understand things.” Also [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/facebook-unveils-new-bigot-recognition-technology), [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/sad-this-guy-just-tried-to-virtue-signal-on-the-internet-but-he-doesnt-have-any-followers), [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/house-democrats-draft-legislation-that-would-make-it-a-hate-crime-to-eat-at-chick-fil-a), and [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/infant-delivers-moving-testimony-baptism). ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/28 "2018-12-31T22:42:02Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > The question of why we know an iPhone had to be designed, while any animal, which is much more complex than the iPhone, didn’t, is an interesting question to ask. > > But this article doesn’t ask the question, it just attempts to ridicule anyone who dares answer. With all respect, I don’t consider an animal to be more complex than an iPhone. I’ve never really understood why most other people believe it to be the case. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/29 "2018-12-31T22:57:42Z")
**Mod Note** Update: didn’t notice this was an old thread. Walking this back to a note, since we generally don’t give warnings on such old infractions. Definitely deserved moderation at the time though. **Warning Issued** Actually, those comments are nothing like saying Jews are slime. And insulting posters by saying they are defending _immoral_ behavior by speaking out against anti-gay bigotry goes over the line. You really struggle with expressing your opinion without hyperbole and insults. > [@Flyer](#): > > I knew that the article would be controversial here. However, I had somehow managed to forget how much raw hatred there is here toward morality, and how so many people here are determined to defend immoral behavior, come hell or high water. The above comments are morally and ethically equivalent to saying things like “Jews are slime.” ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/30 "2018-12-31T23:07:17Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > With all respect, I don’t consider an animal to be more complex than an iPhone. I’ve never really understood why most other people believe it to be the case. Estimates vary pretty widely, but a median estimate for the processing performance of the human brain is 10^16 FLOPS. The fastest supercomputers are in the same ballpark; an iPhone about _5 orders of magnitude_ less. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/31 "2018-12-31T23:13:10Z")
Really? It takes me a few seconds to perform even a single floating point operation. There are some things that I can process better than most computers, but those are tasks which are very poorly measured in FLOPS. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/32 "2018-12-31T23:15:37Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Now, now–you are missing brilliantly-written bits of satire such as [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/waiting-period-mandated-for-nerf-gun-purchases): > > Also [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/facebook-unveils-new-bigot-recognition-technology), [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/sad-this-guy-just-tried-to-virtue-signal-on-the-internet-but-he-doesnt-have-any-followers), [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/house-democrats-draft-legislation-that-would-make-it-a-hate-crime-to-eat-at-chick-fil-a), and [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/infant-delivers-moving-testimony-baptism). But also [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/jesus-wondering-who-white-baby-in-nativity-scene-is-supposed-to-be), [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-churches-announce-plan-to-continue-ignoring-mental-health-issues), [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/man-forced-to-fire-son-from-lego-assembly-team) [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/if-anyone-would-follow-christ-let-him-deny-himself-take-up-his-cross-and-also-buy-his-wife-a-200000-lamborghini) and [this](https://babylonbee.com/news/evangelicals-confirm-they-will-resume-preaching-about-absolute-truth-when-democrat-becomes-president). There’s plenty there that’s infuriating, but any random non-cherry-picked article is also quite likely to be amusing or neutral. Or only make sense if you’re regularly [in](https://babylonbee.com/news/study-finds-strong-connection-between-holiness-and-number-of-chairs-you-stack-after-church-service) [church](https://babylonbee.com/news/church-replaces-boring-old-hymns-with-same-four-songs-every-sunday) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/33 "2018-12-31T23:23:36Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Estimates vary pretty widely, but a median estimate for the processing performance of the human brain is 10^16 FLOPS. The fastest supercomputers are in the same ballpark; an iPhone about _5 orders of magnitude_ less. Yeah, when someone makes an iPhone with trillions of copies of tens of thousands of types of molecular machines interacting inside of a watery bubble of fat, and trillions of those fat bubbles linked together into one system, then we can maybe conciser an iPhone being remotely as complex as an animal. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/34 "2018-12-31T23:39:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Really? It takes me a few seconds to perform even a single floating point operation. Only if doing conscious arithmetic is all you assume the brain does. > [@Chronos](#): > > There are some things that I can process better than most computers, but those are tasks which are very poorly measured in FLOPS. Sure, but there’s a lot of research out there that _does_ discuss what the brain performance might equate to in FLOPS. Of course brain vs non-meat computer is not directly equivalent. But I don’t think it’s an unreasonable first step to estimate the relative complexity of brain vs iPhone in order of magnitude. No plausible alternative measure is going to suggest that an iPhone is remotely close to a mammalian brain in overall complexity, which was the issue raised. I know one alternative proposed measure is TEPS, traversed edges per second. > **[Brain performance in TEPS](https://aiimpacts.org/brain-performance-in-teps/)** > > Traversed Edges Per Second (TEPS) is a benchmark for measuring a computer's ability to communicate information internally. Given several assumptions, we can also estimate the human brain's communication performance in terms of TEPS, and use this... I won’t claim to really understand it well, though. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2019, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/35 "2019-01-01T08:48:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Really? It takes me a few seconds to perform even a single floating point operation. Consciously, sure. Meanwhile, subconsciously, you’re running a highly advanced physics simulation that keeps your body balanced and tells you where your limbs are in relation to your environment. One reason for our big brains: throwing things long distance with accuracy is a hard thing to do! And we do it nearly instinctually. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2019, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/36 "2019-01-01T12:18:14Z")
Based on the “humor” in the OP, seems like you could get the “readers” of that “humor website” to sign up to a constitutional amendment declaring that life begins at the moment of manufacture, in order to prevent the immoral recycling of millions of iPhones every year. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/37 "2019-01-01T13:22:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Really? It takes me a few seconds to perform even a single floating point operation. > > There are some things that I can process better than most computers, but those are tasks which are very poorly measured in FLOPS. Just considering our senses, we are constantly seeing and hearing and feeling everything around us and pattern-matching it against everything else in our memory in near real-time. And that’s before taking into account actually thinking, and the unconscious maintenance that our brains do which would be the equivalent of FLOPS spent on system tasks. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/38 "2019-01-01T15:45:33Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Yeah, when someone makes an iPhone with trillions of copies of tens of thousands of types of molecular machines interacting inside of a watery bubble of fat, and trillions of those fat bubbles linked together into one system, then we can maybe conciser an iPhone being remotely as complex as an animal. And let me know when an iPhone spontaneously makes a copy of itself with equivalent capabilities. Animals not only contain an internal blueprint allowing the reproduction of their own hardware, but also the development of their own behavioral software. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2019, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/39 "2019-01-01T19:13:52Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > And let me know when an iPhone spontaneously makes a copy of itself with equivalent capabilities. > > Animals not only contain an internal blueprint allowing the reproduction of their own hardware, but also the development of their own behavioral software. On the other hand, two bunnies can easily make a third bunny. Two bunnies can’t make an iPhone. In fact, there are probably no two humans who can make an iPhone. So, it depends on what we mean by “complex.” ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2019, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937/40 "2019-01-01T19:27:48Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > On the other hand, two bunnies can easily make a third bunny. Two bunnies can’t make an iPhone. In fact, there are probably no two humans who can make an iPhone. So, it depends on what we mean by “complex.” The vast majority of humans can make another human; but virtually none would know how to make a simple thermostat to control their heating. Does that imply that a thermostat is more complex than a human being? Virtually all bunnies can make more bunnies, generally very quickly and efficiently. Yet no bunny can make a smaller piece of rock from a large boulder. Does that mean a piece of rock is more complex than a bunny? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parody-the-iphone-turns-out-to-have-evolved-naturally/791937.md?page=3)