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You don't know whether "we've" found purposely manipulated genes or not. The going-in assumption is that a genetic characteristic (whatever it might be) occurred as a result of random mutation.

It's not just a random mutation. The presumed manipulated gene would have no close homologs in closely related species - humans, or other monkeys - and it would have close homologs in other Cnidarians. It's not a question of a single base change. An engineered gene doesn't look like any genes in similar species, and it does look like genes in entirely unrelated species. That would really stick out.

They do not address the question of design; rather, they address only your (or my) inadequacy in recognizing and understanding a design.

This simply repeats the previous assertion. You haven't given me any reason why you claim my failure to recognize design is based on ignorance - other than, I suppose, that I fail to recognize evidence of design in nature, which argument is circular.

People do claim there are universal design principles. If you're claiming we can recognize design in nature because it's similar to human design, you can't reasonably then assert that we can't evaluate design in nature by the same principles we use to evaluate human design.

On the one hand, you cite the need for an incredibly powerful and intelligent designer; and then you're apparently claiming that the same results could have occurred as a result of random mutations, with no intelligent interaction.

I am trying to refute the entire argument by reduction to absurdity, by pointing out the contradiction between the intelligent designer and manifest inadequacies of the design. They claim life is much too complex and subtle to have arisen by chance; and that since we certainly can't yet make even a bacterium, the designer must be more powerful and smarter than we are, at least. As far as I know, no IDer is claiming the designer could be inept or bumbling.

Me, I say nature is profoundly chaotic, and I see that as a reflection of the huge influence randomness had on the origin of species. No contradiction.

It's not a question of a single base change. An engineered gene doesn't look like any genes in similar species, and it does look like genes in entirely unrelated species. That would really stick out.

Read the article in question. It would appear from the discussion that such changes are not so obvious as you claim, given that the process leads, in mice at least, to live births of healthy offspring. The major assumptions on your part are that manipulation would "stick out" (why?), and that they'd be obviously taken from "some other species." Neither of these is necessary.

Your argument has been that there's no design because you wouldn't do it that way; or that what you see doesn't make sense as design. Nothing more or less. While it's probably not to your liking, it's not "circular" to point out the shortcomings of your arguments.

People do claim there are universal design principles.

What people claim that? And of those who might make that claim, do they make the further claim that no other designs are possible than what they, themselves, would recognize?

If you're claiming we can recognize design in nature because it's similar to human design,

Not my claim. I'm claiming, rather, that we have an innate tendancy to accept the possibility of design, because we are designers ourselves. A "natural adaptation" makes sense to us, because we recognize how it satisfies some "design requirement." If you've ever done software, you'll have seen how different programmers will accomplish even the simplest tasks in a variety of very different ways.

you can't reasonably then assert that we can't evaluate design in nature by the same principles we use to evaluate human design.

We certainly can do that -- but we cannot then simultaneously denounce as "idiotic" a purported design that far exceeds the capabilities of what humans can presently achieve. It presupposes knowledge you do not have.

Then neither you, nor your strawman IDer, is being honest. You, because you're ignoring the factual presence of human intelligent designers; and the strawman IDer, because he does not recognize that the results of human ID are not perfect.

Me, I say nature is profoundly chaotic, and I see that as a reflection of the huge influence randomness had on the origin of species. No contradiction.

Perhaps -- but it's also not science.