[DC Bound]

I've studied the link you posted and replied to it here in depth. (Someone, I hope someday, will offer advice to me on how to post a link to another post...)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1492906/posts?page=169#169

Between function or aim is in this context no difference. So with a function a designer is introduced to IC or IC is impossible without a designer.

I disagree because the flagellum has a function whether it was designed or arose through evolution.

Because ID also could happen to non-IC systems but you won't be able to detect it there. So you need IC to detect ID. But IC needs some D. So you see the circle?

Not true. Design is detectable in a host of other examples besides IC. If you saw a chess board with all the pawns stacked on one side, one in front of the other, you would recognize that configuration was impossible given the laws of chess and the chance that the pawns could move in their given spaces. You would have to conclude something acting outside the laws of chess and chance contributed to the layout of the board. ID argues that examples like this are abundant, from the fine tuning of the universe to IC to abiogenesis and more. You are treating ID and IC as if they are two swirling arguments, each totally reliant on the assumptions of the other.

My ice block is a very simple IC machine. I think that atoms count as components as in the flagellum.

You can't possibly hope to compare the delicate, interwoven complexity of the finest machine in existence to a bunch of atoms lined up in a row because they are cold. It doesn't pass the smell test, but if you want, go to the following link for a complete argument. Go to page 18.

http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.01.Irred_Compl_Revisited.pdf

[inquest]

Someone, I hope someday, will offer advice to me on how to post a link to another post...

Looking at your post, I can see that you know how to do italics in HTML. You do the same thing when you hyperlink, but instead of < i > and < /i >, you type < a href="http://www.whatever.com/" > to start the hyperlinked text, and you close it with < /a >. (just be sure to get rid of the spaces after each "<", and before each ">")

[blowfish]

You can't possibly hope to compare the delicate, interwoven complexity of the finest machine in existence to a bunch of atoms lined up in a row because they are cold. It doesn't pass the smell test, but if you want, go to the following link for a complete argument.

Go look at the chemical structures of more complex materials like Zeolites or clays. Surely those were designed? No? They are far more elaborate than...say...a Glycine molecule, which is actually pretty easy to create in abiotic conditions.

The idea that some molecules must have been designed, while other "obviously" are not, is a crock of s**t.

[shuckmaster]

You would have to conclude something acting outside the laws of chess and chance contributed to the layout of the board. ID argues that examples like this are abundant,

Chess pieces, like any other intelligently designed objects, don't mate and bear children on their own. Such advanced complexity only occurs through biological evolution.

[MHalblaub]

"You can't possibly hope to compare the delicate, interwoven complexity of the finest machine in existence to a bunch of atoms lined up in a row because they are cold. It doesn't pass the smell test, but if you want, go to the following link for a complete argument. Go to page 18. "

Is the thesis of IC limited to living objects? Someone have tried to argue with a mouse trap.

Irreducible Complexity Revisited http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.01.Irred_Compl_Revisited.pdf by William a Dembski.

page 19f:
"But a Roman arch is simplifiable—a single, solid piece of rock can be made into the same shape as the arch, thereby performing the same function as the arch and doing so in essentially the same manner."
With that argument you can kick your so beloved flagellum as well. Exchange some atoms and it still will work. Sure you want some proof how to do that. I must admit I don't know how to construct a flagellum with other atoms but can you proof that is impossible?
By the way, an single, solid piece of rock is much more inflexible and unhandy as some smaller stones.

"Thus, for the Darwinian mechanism to produce an irreducibly complex system by means of a scaffold, the system plus scaffold must have served a different function up until all the core components of the final irreducibly complex system became available, snapped into place, and formed a functional system."
My problem with this argumentation is the part with "must have served a different function". Why, because the selective pressure is so big? This is an error in the comprehension of how selection works. It depends on the environment how big the pressure is and how many 'useless' things may survive. With low pressure you got scaffolds, with high pressure maybe a son a extincted species. Therefore very specialized species are likelier to extinct then environment changes.

Dembski lack to show that it is impossible to achieve an irreducibly complex by small steps. He himself showed that a scaffold works but denies that function to biological systems.