Proving irreducible complexity with a cell-phone

Would it still be a cell phone, or would it be a door stop?

It would be a door stop which has function.

So it would cease to function as a cell phone?

Yes. However, it would have function which is all that is needed for selection. Remember, the IC argument states that IC systems can’t evolve because there is no function to be selected for until the entire system is in place. The entire argument is falsified if a simpler system lacking parts has function.

2 Likes

Why not? A phone is composed of wires and electrical components (resistors, capacitors, logic gates, etc.) and so is a GPS. So if we know how to have the organic equivalents, which we must have in order to make the organic cell phone in the first place, then it should be quite easy to rearrange the components into a GPS.

4 posts were split to a new topic: Indefensible Accusations by Mung

maybe i was not clear enough. we need to show how such a system can evolve stepwise when any step is functional. otherwise it will not mimic tevolution but design.

how? we will not get a cell-phone in such a way so you are saying that the opposite is true?

why not? if its made from organic components then the analogy is perfect and you cant reject it by saying that we cant compare a cell-phone to a living thing. because it is a living thing in this case.

are you saying that a gps and a cell-phone share the same parts?

Yes, the are composed of large numbers of a relatively few basic electronic components. If you know the components and can make one (cell phone or GPS), rearranging to make the other shouldn’t be a very difficult task.

so how many parts we need to mix to get a cell-phone from a gps?

Each step is functional. It functions as a paperweight.

I would even venture that we could probably keep the GPS functionality while “growing” it into a cell phone. There is nothing about a GPS that would prohibit you from building a transmitter or a speaker/microphone around it, for instance.

I suspect a cellphone could actually communicate with the GPS system just using a software update. They’re both communicating in the microwave range. Any modern cellphone has GPS.

Apparently, we are operating with two very different concepts for what constitutes evidence in a scientific discussion. Scientific evidence consists of observed facts through observation and/or experimentation. This is why a hypothetical example, by definition, cannot be used as evidence in a scientific argument. We must be approaching the question of irreducible complexity from two very different angles, but since we are talking about living things, I am approaching this from a scientific standpoint that precludes anything hypothetical from even being considered as evidence.

1 Like

so why to choose a gps parts? only if you know that you will end up with a gps. only a designer can do it. not natural selection.

this is observed fact that if we will remove some parts from a biological system it will stop function. so here is your experimentation.

@Mung

Even Behe doesnt say an evolving phone is not allowed to have non-phone functions prior to its completion as a phone!

He says an IC cant have ANY function at all - - prior to becoming a phone!

Case closed. Full stop. You just contradicted several prior posts regarding what I.C. means!

Deja vu: