Darwinism

[SenseiOtho]

As for your first point, if I understand you correctly this seems to be another tired rehash of Behe's little idea about "irreducible complexity". It. Does. Not. Hold. Water.
I'm not sure how often it has to be said, but evolution is not linear. Things adapt to have different functions. Taking a single piece out of a complex structure may make its current function impossible, but it may still be able to perform a different function.
Behe's own example of the bacterial flagellum shows this. Take any single part away and it no longer functions as a flagellum. However, it is very similar in composition to another structure in bacteria which is used to inject toxins into neighbouring cells (if I remember correctly). A single change could turn one into the other. And guess what? The toxin injector isn't irreducibly complex! It'll still work with parts taken out of it, just not as well.

I just had to comment on this... It seems that we agree that Darwinian evolution fails to work linearly (at least in some cases). Behe's irreducible complexity only works against direct or linear evolution where the function is kept. So your forced to argue for indirect evolution with changing function that progressively gets more complex. But the question I have for you is where is the evidence to back up your theory? You mention the poison injector found in the flagellum (its called a type 3 secretory system or TTSS). There are two problems with claiming this as your reason for believing in indirect evolution. 1) it is like finding an island between Europe and North America and saying that that explains how you get from one point to the other. There is still a lot of difference between the two that is unexplained. Your claiming two much explanatory power from the actual evidence. 2) It doesn't make since from an evolutionary stand point. Which came first the flagellum or the TTSS. Well, you want to say the simpler TTSS came first because it fits with your preconceived theory, but from an evolutionary stand point it makes more since to say the flagellum was first. Water was abundant on early earth, it is assumed that live evolved in water of some type of soup. There was single cell life living in water many millions of years before any multicellular organism. The flagellum is useful for moving in water and finding food in water or other liquid environments. While the TTSS is useless in a open water environment. Not until there were multicellular organisms would the TTSS have any purpose or anything to poison. The flagellum would have been functionally useful long before the TTSS. It makes more since to say that the TTSS de-evolved from the flagellum. The opposite from what your claiming. I've fine with things de-evolving, we see it in animals like the cave fish and salamanders who lost their eye sight and color.