I once heard a certain parable. It goes something like this:
Jules Verne was one day walking through a forest. It was a really beautiful forest, and he was trying to get inspiration for another book. However, before he got deep into nature, he saw something shiny. Because natural things usually aren't shiny, especially in a forest, Mr. Verne walks over to it. He removes a few leaves and reveals a sleek, thin, black iPhone.
Verne is baffled by this piece of what he thinks to be a weird rock. He is examining it, and accidentally turns it on. Now, he's even more surprised that this 'rock' has a light and pictures.
Jules takes the iPhone back to his house and examines it. He soon finds out some of its capabilities, including taking pictures, gathering data, and even talk to a mechanized voice. However, he is sure that this isn't all that it can do. So, he takes the device to a scientist.
The scientist examines the iPhone, and finds a few more features other than the ones that Verne told him. But, this scientist is still baffled, so he calls other scientists around. Soon, they know quite a bit about this piece of super-modern technology.
However, they decide to take a look inside. So, after much effort, they get the case open. They are very surprised to see the circuits and chips that make the interior of the iPhone. They run a few high-tech tests and find that much of these boards are made up of silicon.
This gives them an idea. They decide to form a few hypothesises on how this was made. They work for years, and finally they come up with two options. They take these options to debate, and one is settled on. Then, they go out and teach this hypothesis to the rest of the world.
By now, people were finding random things in nature. Desktops, cell phones, CD players, iPods, and even really old PC's. By studying these, the scientists find that their interiors are much like the iPhone's. This, they feel, helps support their cause.
So, they teach their ideas out on how these were made, and the people agree. Well, most of them do. Some start arguing the case of the one un-taught hypothesis and they start teaching it around, which catches on. Soon, a hot debate is going around on how these electronics were made.
These are the two hypothesises:
1: The more-popular one. This tells that before the forests grew up to much height, lightning struck the ground, fusing the dirt together with intense heat. This dirt clod rolled, and got struck again and again and again with lightning, adding dirt, removing some materials, and shaping the clod. Eventually, throughout the years (which numbered very high), only silicon was fused together. A bit of copper was added somewhere, and all that electrical charge was kept in a small disk. Then, over time, these giant silicon disks were covered with dirt that got fused into a weird, non-metal, yet firm covering. These met up with flat, picture-type pieces of what was known as 'plastic'. Then, they started to work. A miracle of hundreds of years of natural, random processes.
After that first thing was made, animals and rain and lightning cut down the silicon board sizes, but added some smaller bits, making the computer more powerful, until they came out with the sleek, powerful, fancy iPhone.
The scientists were ecstatic that they'd found out how these things were made. But, does it make sense?
The second hypothesis was much different and much simpler. It was thus: Somebody had made these wonders and placed them in the forest.
This was supported by the fact that although the insides of the electronics looked alike, they were vastly different. The larger ones had bigger, less efficient parts that the smaller ones had, but the smaller were missing essential parts that the bigger ones had, and vice versa. Also, the symbols and writings that were so obviously in both Latin characters and in the English language proved that these marvels were created by humans and set in the forests. It was simply a fact of finding who had made these things.
Now, let me tell you about a computer. This computer is a wondrous thing. It is the absolute pinnacle of technology. It can run for a very long time without overheating or shutting down. It doesn't waste energy. The innards are dense, promoting efficiency and compact size (although it is much larger than microcomputers).
This computer can hold such large amounts of information, not even able to be said and measured with yottabytes. Thousands of songs and millions of high-quality videos can be stored. There is so much memory, that there is no need to delete anything. It has the most efficient filling system known to man, with thousands of cross-references that can bring up a single item (video, song, picture, etc.) in a millisecond. It can do complicated logic problems very quickly, along with mathematical equations. If you have two cameras that input into this computer (which usually comes standard), this computer will automatically put those two videos together to form a three-dimensional moving picture you can watch without the need of special glasses.
Without external command, this computer will work day and night, night and day, without wasting energy or even getting hot. It is truly a modern technological marvel. It develops with its user, having the ability to, without adding anything, upgrade its memory, video system, sound system, and RAM.
This super-cool computer has a very special price and a quite simple name. It's price: free. They are given freely to everybody. It's name: the Human Brain.
Now tell me, how could something like this happen randomly. Just like the iPhone, it had to have been made by some intelligent being.
but way longer than it needs to be to make it's point.
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