but the idea of design might open our understanding to some things we never would have considered otherwise.

1. Poor design is still design.

It's good to see that you have a rudimentary grasp of the design inference. I was not making a design inference when I employed the building analogy.

Science, properly understood, should merely be defined as the knowledge man can gain from observing the natural world.

The fact that cells reproduce and buildings don't has absolutely nothing to do with the point that was being made.

I have been known to do that, it just wasn't happening there.