Debate: Creationism vs. Evolutionism
Side: evolutionism

I completely agree that irreducible complexity requires no thought, or at least very little thought. That is because it it so utterly simple that anyone who believes in or previously believed in evolutionary theory should be able to recognize its logic.Simple answers don't really work when discussing complicated systems.The only reason that I continuously repeat my argument regarding the fact that biological systems can't develop in stages over long periods is because it is exactly the answer to your arguments that the woodpecker may have possessed the cartilage in its head prior to feeding from trees. You seem to have researched the issues to an extent, and therefore my logic should be blatantly obvious (and, viewed objectively, it is indeed obvious).I've refuted your logic. Reiterating it won't work.So assuming that this pre-woodpecker form did possess the protective cartilage in its head, that does not explain EVERY other feature that enables woodpeckers to effectively feed from trees. The feet, thicker skull, smooth, smaller brain, barbed tongue, and unique behavior designed to protect it during the feeding process are also characteristics that must be explained, unless I am to assume that the woodpecker inherited all of these characteristics from a predecessor, in which this predecessor would be suspiciously similar to a woodpecker and might indeed not need to evolve. This predecessor could never have obtained food from trees without the aforementioned developments, as it simply would not have had the anatomical capability to do so.This argument assumes that it is impossible to garner insects from trees without every one of these developments. You only really need the beak and the skull to make a living from it. Everything else could possibly have come afterwards.First, we could assume that it had an urgent need to find an additional food source because of, for instance, an environmental issue affecting the existing supply.There's no need to assume that. If a more bounteous food source exists, the animals, if they could, would probably just switch to that, whether there was a food shortage or not. Perhaps one would assume that the woodpecker's ancestor possessed most of these features (because, of course, were it to possess all of them, then it would be a woodpecker, with no need for evolution).First, we could assume that it had an urgent need to find an additional food source because of, for instance, an environmental issue affecting the existing supply. In that case, the ancestor would die out simply because it would not have had all of the necessary features to acquire sustenance and would not have developed them in the necessary time frame.As aforesaid, it's not necessary for the ancestor to have all of the adaptations. Why? Because the first structures, serving no purpose and being in violation of natural selection, would be eliminated in the offspringYou obviously don't understand what you are refuting. The function of structures changes over time, and becomes specialised over many reiterations of a basic structure held by a common ancestor. It's virtually impossible to account for one species' features because of the sheer number of ancestors and offshoots it has. The salient issue is that evolution has been directly observed in bluebottle flies, rats and viruses. It is an indisputable fact.However, the question is how it would be able to do so in stages, and for what reason that it would have continued to develop the required biological structures if the first were completely unnecessaryA beak is not unnecessary.Feet are not unnecessary.A tongue is not unnecessary.A brain is not unnecessary.These features are common to all birds, and have simply become specialised in the woodpecker, as they became specialised in the various species of finches observed by Darwin in the Galapagos islands. The birds had beaks specialised to feed from the particular environment of the island they lived on.