While giving a presentation on his book about living things and the functions they perform ("The Tinkerer's Accomplice"), this author was faced with a heckler who asked intrusive "questions" and demanded "clarifications" that were intended not to illuminate the discussion, but rather to disrupt and distract from the presentation. The author believes that the heckler was disturbed by the use of the word "design" in his presentation. Unless clearly linked to the process of natural selection, "design" can be a bit of a red flag for modern biologists. Most people, when they contemplate the living world, get an overwhelming sense that it is a designed place, replete with marvelous and ingenious contrivances. The problem is that using the word "design" implies that a designer has been at work, with all the attributes implied by that word. Most of the challenges to Darwinism, including intelligent design, have arisen over what most people see as a self-evident link between design and purpose in the living world. The author states that it is hard to see a threat in asking such questions; in fact, in their readiness to proscribe intelligent design, Darwinists are telling the world not only that they are unwilling to ask such questions, but that they do not want others to ask them either.