The motors are not just motors, they just happen to be motors right now. I think it is the selfish gene that describes the path from a protein structure that facilitates the movement of molecules across the cell's membrane into a motor with a flagellum attached.
These things that are claimed to fall apart when a single step is removed were not there from the ground up to provide that specific function, separately they would have provided different functions and when they fell together in a certain way provided a huge benefit. The little bones in our ears were a part of our skulls before they were requisitioned by the ear.
The issue seems to be that the argument looks at how things are and assumes that it was the only thing that these parts have ever been working towards. That any steps in between were useless until put together in this way. Where it is more accurately a bunch of different things coming together to perform all these different functions.
Don't you think what you're writing as a reply is a bit vague? How would you describe the evolution of the coagulation system? What different systems existed before the coagulation system that fell together into the current system?
From what I remember from the book the coagulation system looked to be one monolithic piece and not built up of smaller systems.
His reply is a bit vague, but as I recall this has actually been studied and it turns out that (for instance) other animals have blood coagulation systems that are lacking several of the 30 supposedly essential parts and still work fine - see e.g. http://creationwiki.org/Blood_clotting_is_irreducibly_comple... and the usual anti-creationism resources. Similarly, the supposedly "irreducably complex" bacterial motors turn out to be made of components that originally evolved for other purposes and were repurposed.
I agree that I was vague, however my response was not intended to be an absolute refutation of every argument that follows that pattern, otherwise I'd be playing whack-a-mole with arguments forever. It was meant to be a general explanation of how the argument makes a large assumption that would be pretty easy to refute with further research. As the person above did with a link.
Also, I did give further reading with the selfish gene for a specific example of a bacteria's flagellum.
These things that are claimed to fall apart when a single step is removed were not there from the ground up to provide that specific function, separately they would have provided different functions and when they fell together in a certain way provided a huge benefit. The little bones in our ears were a part of our skulls before they were requisitioned by the ear.
The issue seems to be that the argument looks at how things are and assumes that it was the only thing that these parts have ever been working towards. That any steps in between were useless until put together in this way. Where it is more accurately a bunch of different things coming together to perform all these different functions.