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Evolution cannot explain irreducible complexity, defined as systems which cannot suffer the removal or disablement of a single component without loss of function.

You have this backward in that ID posits that that irreducibly complex organisms cannot be the product of gradual development over a long period of time. All of the parts must be present from the beginning, not that it will stop working if parts are taken away. It is the origin of the parts and the controlling instructions that are in question.

Mutations over a long period of time would not account for all of the elements of the biochemical processes for blood clotting, for instance. If it takes 11 chemical reactions, in sequence, to produce blood clotting, what would account for the first chemical reaction?
And what would that process do while waiting for the second reaction?
What would the organism do while it was waiting for the reaction that would trigger the process?
More importantly, what would it do while it is waiting for the chemical reaction to turn off the process?
Where would the instructions for controlling this process reside?

ID is not about change, it is about origin.
ID is not just about the origin of the structure, it is also about the origin of the process control, as well.

Evolution says that all of that came about over a long period of time, by random chance, unguided and without purpose. It would also lead us to believe that somehow all of this randomness can account for a highly sophisticated, complex system coming into existence - natural selection assessing each mutation, keeping "useful" changes, rejecting each "un-useful" change. And yet, how does a random chance process define "useful" and "un-useful"? How does the organism "know" what is "useful" and what is not? It doesn't even "know" what the end product/process is going to be...how can it assess usefulness?

This all begs for some kind of controlling intelligence.

1. he got the definition of "irreducible complexity(sic)" correct. the proper term is "irreducible simplicity" but I suppose that didn't sound grandiose and arcane enough for IDiots, so they goosed it for mass appeal.

2. so it takes 11 steps for one form of blood clotting. there are other forms of blood clotting, are there not? there are less efficient but similar forms of blood clotting, are there not? do any of the chemicals in the clotting cascade have any other biological function (implying they might have been adapted from one function to another)? etc...

3. evolution does not require completely unguided processes.
inherent properties of matter and energy provide some factors which favor some outcomes over others - that is a form of organizing principle or "guidance".
there are other basic, unavoidable, highly organized factors - orbital mechanics for example - which render the Earth-life system other than "completely random".
Climate factors generally change gradually, rather than suddenly. Such cliomate factors as temperature and average rainfall, atmospheric composition, etc... provide relatively stable selective pressures on populations of organisms, and thus effectively "guide" selection towards advantageous mutations surviving and reproducing more successfully than climatologically disadvantageous mutations. etc...
More developed life forms also "guide" selection through various forms of breeding preference paradigms. These seem to tend to accentuate speciation.

None of these factors requires the organism to "know" diddly-squat about "good" and "bad" or "useful" and "unuseful" adaptations.
None of these factors requires an intelligent designer, either.

Evolution cannot explain irreducible complexity, defined as systems which cannot suffer the removal or disablement of a single component without loss of function.

You have this backward in that ID posits that that irreducibly complex organisms cannot be the product of gradual development over a long period of time.

In regard what particular element of concern is VadeRetro's statement "backward" to yours?

All of the parts must be present from the beginning, not that it will stop working if parts are taken away. It is the origin of the parts and the controlling instructions that are in question.

VadeRetro's statement of the thesis of "irreducible complexity" comes a good deal closer the Behe's formulations, and the explanations in his book than yours does.

We're fairly used to creationists preening and crowing and unilaterally declaring victory with a bust hand, so this is nothing new.

You have this backward in that ID posits that that irreducibly complex organisms cannot be the product of gradual development over a long period of time.

Hence "evolution cannot explain" its existence? Did I fail to anticipate your exact favored wording? Who cares what your exact favored wording is?

ID is not about change, it is about origin.

Actually, no. It refuses to address that directly. "It might have been the Raelians, but that would be stupid. It might have been Brahma, but that's bull. We know what it was, but WE'RE NOT SAYING because that would be ... something ... mumble mumble ... It's not that kind of theory."

It's not about origin. It's about what evolution cannot explain because evolution posits no Designer.

That said ...

I hope the above isn't your answer to the counter-challenge, to state the theory of evolution and give a quick summary of the lines of evidence for same. Because if it is, you have failed to distinguish yourself from your YEC/ID brethren in any way.

Evolution says that all of that came about over a long period of time, by random chance, unguided and without purpose. It would also lead us to believe that somehow all of this randomness can account for a highly sophisticated, complex system coming into existence - natural selection assessing each mutation, keeping "useful" changes, rejecting each "un-useful" change. And yet, how does a random chance process define "useful" and "un-useful"? How does the organism "know" what is "useful" and what is not? It doesn't even "know" what the end product/process is going to be...how can it assess usefulness?

Useful changes are the ones that allow the organism to survive in its environment and pass its genes to future generations. We see evidence of this in Asia now, where the few elephants born without tusks are better equipped to survive in a poacher-saturated environment. They survive to pass the tuskless gene to their offspring. The elephant population begins to be dominated by the previously-rare tuskless elephants, and the tusked elephants may well die off altogether because the tuskless elephants are better equipped to survive predation.

Nature doesn't need a "designer" to evaluate how useful a mutation is. Those that are useful will survive.

This all begs for some kind of controlling intelligence.

Ah, here is the only piece of evidence to support ID. IDers want it to be so, so it must be so. In the absence of any concrete facts to support it (which evolution has), ID requires an emotional appeal to make its case. That one sentence, in a nutshell, demonstrates why ID has no business in a science class. In a theology class? Obviously. In a philosophy class? Absolutely. But in a science class? Not in the slightest.