You were exactly right when you said that "Intelligent Design is not and cannot be science because it implies a Designer, and science cannot possibly study the Designer." It has nothing to do with liking or disliking religion and everything to do with what science is and is not.
Until someone smarter than all us can propose a scientific mythology for the study of the designer we are in the "how many angels can dance on the head of pin" territory."
You don’t need to be able to study the designer to know that one exists. Evidence for a designer’s existence is clearly observable and testable. The order and complexity that science itself depends on is evidence of design and can be tested.
Certainly scientists running a complex, controlled experiment expect it to show thought, reasoning, and intelligence. If order and complexity are not evidence of intelligence than all of the above reduces science meaninglessness. A *scientific* experiment then means nothing more than chaos.
There you go again. As I said, you simply reject ID by fiat because you don’t like its religious implications.
And what does “study of the designer” have to do with it? Science is the study of the design, not the study of the Designer.
The distinction here is very simple. Suppose someone sends you some software, and you have no clue who wrote it. Would you claim that it was not intelligently designed because you know nothing about the designer? I hope not. But that is the logical equivalent of your nonsensical claim.