True enough, since it's just examining the properties of the "cell machinery". And yet, that doesn't stop you from suddenly declaring:
On the contrary, it underscores the point that this is an irreducibly complex system.
Excuse me? No, it doesn't. If the article doesn't bother to "broach the subject" of how the flagellum could have (or could not have) arisen through evolution, then it provides no insight *either way* into the matter.
How quickly creationists declare victory out of thin air...
Macnab claims there are “60 different types of components in this little engine.”
Yes, so? Being somewhat complex is hardly the same as being provably "irreducibly complex". You *do* actually understand what "irreducibly complex" means, don't you? It's a very specific claim about a system -- you can't just say, "well that's complex, therefore it's probably irreducibly complex, so there, I win, QED." That's incredibly sloppy "reasoning". In fact, it's no sort of reasoning at all. It's simple presumption.
Whether something is irreducibly complex or not is something that has to be *proven* in a rigorous, mathematical-proof type manner. You haven't even *begun* to do so. Nor has Behe. He's the king of the "argumentum ad ignoratum", or the argument from ignorance, which goes, "I don't see how that could happen, therefore it couldn't have". The fallacy involved in that sort of logical leap should be clear to all -- all except creationists, apparently.
A *lot* more has to be understood about the mechanics of flaggela, and the DNA coding which builds them, not to mention a comprehensive study of more primitive fossil flagella, and other forms of flagella in still-living species, before any firm conclusions can be drawn about whether they could feasibly have arisen by evolution, or whether an evolutionary pathway seems a case of "you can't get there from here".
Unless Behe (or you) have claimed to have exhaustively examined *every* conceivable stepwise pathway from cells without flagella to cells with them, and explicitly ruled *each* one out, it's ludicrous to just flatly declare a priori that they "must" be irredicibly complex.
Why don't you do what real scientists do, and go off and make a major research project out of this, exhaustively examining all the available evidence and working your way through all the intricate ramifications of your hypothesis?
Oh, right, because it's so much easier to just declare victory without doing all the hard work of making a *case* for it...
Pfaugh...
How quickly creationists declare victory out of thin air...
Its seems as if the creationists expect true scientists to spend every second of their time attempting to prove evolution and refute ID instead of doing productive work. This is just a desperate attempt from those that are being ignored to get some attention.
I'm sorry, but at this point the burden of proof is on the creationists (or ID'ers or whatever). The evolutionists have already presented their evidence. All the creationists do is attempt to take potshots without presenting any evidence of their own. I will ask again, where/what/who is your creator? Do you have anything except dubious 2000-year-old manuscripts?
Of course it does. It is an enormously efficient motor made up of some 60 individual parts all coming together to produce one smooth working unit. Just about all the parts are specific to the flagellar mechanism and no one has shown they evolved in the 8 or so years since the claim was made. That is pretty strong proof that it did not evolve, however, if you have valid scientific proof for it having evolved, let's hear it. Rhetoric is evidence of nothing and that is all you have.