Intelligent design. Philosophy of ignorance.

Isn't this a bit like disclaiming the existence of emotion on the basis it is non-physical?As a meterialist I would claim that ultimately both emotions and memes have a material basis within the neurology of the host brain.However I would not necessarily want to reduce "happiness" down to neurons in order to usefully study it as a phenomenon. The psychology of human happines as a thing in itself seems a perfectly scientific possibility for investigation to me.Would you claim that because happiness is not physical as such that we cannot study happiness as a phenomenon scientifically?

Your argument as I understand it seems to be -
1)ID is not science because it invokes the potentially non physical
2)Memetics is a study of the non physical so therefore also cannot be science on the same grounds
Is this correct?This argument presupposes a view of science that may not be shared. Hence the confusion as to exactly what you are arguing.The reasons for ID not being science are varied and many.I would argue that the main reason ID is not science is because it puts the cart before the horse by making cast iron conclusions with no reference to physical evidence and then seeks to justify these conclusions by seeking evidence.
This results in the conclusions being totally immune to prediction and refutation in the eyes of the IDists and completely bypasses at best, and reverses at worst, the whole scientific method.Scientific conclusions are those derived from physical evidence via the scientific method. Memes have physical effects which can be studied scientificallyID is not non science-simply because it is claimed that the designer in question is potentially "non-physical" (whatever that actually means).
If the physical evidence genuinely pointed towards a designer of some sort that would be a perfectly valid scientific conclusion and the nature of the designer a perfectly valid field of scientific research.However there is no evidence to suggest a designer and a great deal of evidence to suggest the opposite.Memes may not be physical but they can be studied scientifically in the ways others have adequately described elsewhere in this thread. Non physicality per se does not disclude a phenomenon from scientific investigation.