Even if there was a Designer, does it matter?

An intervening god is not just a designer.
You have moved the discussion from: "Is there any value to the concept of a Designer beyond a historical footnote?"
to: "Is there any value to the concept of a Designer and a manipulator beyond a historical footnote?"
That is a very different question. I notice that you skipped the second half of my previous reply that addressed your insistence on the importance of 'Who'.
'Who' is not useful; only 'What' is useful.Since you are so certain that 'Who' is useful, can you give an example?

Nope.If I found out that my car was designed by a designer in India would it matter? But the current driving forces outlined in the Theory of Evolution already explain what we see.If we understand the how the designer manipulates those forces then again, just as with any other natural process, the designer becomes irrelevant.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

An intervening designer is a "type" of designer. The OP never specifies which type of designer we are dealing with. It just says designer in general. I am just proposing that the type of designer whether it is active, inactive can have implications beyond footnotes. For example if the god of Judaism was found to be the designer. Than knowing who designed the universe could have serious ramifications since living your life not in accordance with god's will (what ever that may be) could affect how you spend eternity. This is the easiest example of how knowing the "who" of the designer can have important implications for humanity.If you want to make this hypothetical situation as bland as it can be. Than yes you can narrow its scope down far enough that the identity of the designer can have no impact on scientific understanding or humanities response. However the type of designer proposed has a direct correlation with the amount of impact that the identity of the designer will have on people.Who the designer is can be useful in order for us to reevaluate the way in which we conduct our experiments. If supernatural explanations need to be incorporated with our current understandings for example. It could be important if we want to determine how to establish communications with the designer. If as Jar has already mentioned earlier we need to decide as a people to communicate with the designer if possible. It could be important on how people view the world and how they live their lives. If aliens were found to be the designers of life, you would probably see new religions springing forth that worship the aliens or converts to Judaism or Christianity if it was found to be god. The "what" of the designer’s creation is only useful in a scientific sense and even then in a very narrow sense of our understanding. I realize that science as of now only concerns itself with a very mechanical approach of how life behaves and evolves. This hypothetical situation is not dealing with our current understanding of science though. It is proposing that our current models are wrong because of the fact that it presupposes it is all from the will of the designer. In which case science could radically change if they knew which designer of all the hypothetical’s it in fact is.Edited by rueh, : No reason given.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

No, that is NOT what jar said.You had mentioned aliens seeding life here and I replied that if we knew that as a fact we would need to decide if we even wanted to communicate with those aliens. And again, you have never explained why anything would change.Does it really matter if the first radio was designed by Lodge or Popov or Dolbear or Tesla or Marconi or ... ?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Does the desinger of your car impact how you believe you will spend eternity? But the hypothetical situation that you originaly proposed is not dealing with out current understanding of evolution. It presupposes that our understanding of evolution is flawed. Since current theories do not incorporate a designer. That entirely depends of the "type" of designer. If for example we suppose an active designer. Than our unsderstanding of those forces may never be complete since they could be "tweeked" at any time by the designer.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

Nor does the identity of the designer of life and this universe effect my beliefs about how I will spend eternity. Too funny. You even quote the next thing I said that addresses that issue. HUH?Our understanding is unlikely to ever be complete, thank God.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

The only reason that the 'Who' would be important is because of the intervening, not the design.
The OP asked: Is the designer important?
You are answering the question: Is the intervener important?
If you want to conflate the two, then that would be a different question to what was being asked. What you are actually asking is "What if life was designed by a god who was immortal and omniscient and omnipotent and took a keen interest in humans and spoke to some of them and punished those he didn't like and gave eternal life to those he liked and changed things whenever he wanted, and, etc....?"If you want to massively expand a question and leave behind any resemblance to the original question, then that would leave you with a different question to the one being asked.

True, however as I already stated the OP never suggests which type of designer we are to consider. I am trying to point out the type of designer whether active, inactive, natural or supernatural all plays out on how we consider the importance of each. And if Jar had intended us to consider a designer who is inactive and operated within our known methods of evolution, than he should have specifically stated this. Without this than any hypothetical designer is up for consideration and some of those hypothetical designers have a larger impact than just mere footnotes or liability issues. No I am merely suggesting one type of designer. One which many folks here already have experience with and can relate to. Jar suggested a purely hypothetical situation with no constraints on who the designer is or how they operated. As such any amount of speculation can be added to this to go from no importance to massive importance. If Jar wants to confine his hypothetical situation down to such a small group of possible designers with no input since creation and that operated with in known processes of biology, chemistry and physics. Than I would concede that their identity would have no bearing on how scientific investigation is conducted. But if the identity is left up to any possible answer, than the importance of the designer can have huge repercussions on science and everyday life.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

jar (note all lower case) talked about a designer, not a mechanic or maintenance worker. We are not discussing the janitor. And you so far have not shown why even the expanded janitor designer matters in relation to the job of being a designer.Edited by jar, : frix subtitle

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

If you make up some fantastical example that has no basis in reality, then I suppose it could be possible to argue that the designer's identity is important.
But, back in reality, the designer's identity doesn't matter much.Can you think of a real-world example where knowing a designer's identity is useful?On a side note:
ID is meant to be science.
If you start introducing the supernatural into the equation then that would not be science.
What you are doing is exactly what ID proponents deny is their intention: using ID to re-label religion as science. Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

patents and copyright law?

Give it 100 years and it's just an historical footnote.I suspect that the whole of creation is now out of copyright. {abe}I think that would come under jar's OP criteria "Product Liability suits".Edited by Panda, : typosEdited by Panda, : abe

i knew there as an obvious reason no one else said that.

Well in that case it is rueh (note the u before the e). I don't believe I have mentioned any janitors or workers of any type. I have however mentioned that the type of designer you choose to propose influences how much their identity could matter. Wouldn't a supernatural designer be just another type of designer? Which type of designer did you have in mind? Are you wanting to discuss a designer that has no impact on everyday life and whose finding would not conflict with any science so far? Or do you think that current theories proport a designer and whose finding would be in line with current theories? That's not true. I have given several examples how the type of designer can influence how much importance people would place on its identity. Just because you don't want to acknowledge them doesn't mean I haven't shown anything.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

Well with that I agree. In reality there is no designer that has been identified and no scientific theory makes note of a need for a designer. However if one was ever found to be true. You can bet your ass you would have a million people proclaiming why their choosen identity of the designer matters and others don't. Real world examples? No, not off hand. However for this thought experiment. I believe that the identity of the designer plays the most important role in both religious and philosophical aspects. ID is just one type of field where a designer is required and I didn't think that we were talking about ID designers specifically. Creationism also needs a designer and in it the supernatural is firmly embedded. However I am not a proponent of either. I believe that ID is religion relabeled. I just wanted to play devil’s advocate because I felt that jar was wrong on this point of identity not mattering for the designer.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX