Seeking truth is never a waste of time. I would agree that interpreting ANY evidence in a way to support any preconcieved idea is incorrect... whther that idea be that there is no creator or there is.
IF, it could ever be found that a pattern emerges which indicates an intelligent designer, however, I do not think it would be worthless. Patterns of things, often hypothetical imaginary things, are quite often used by the scientific community to make intuitive leaps in scientific thought. Quantum Physics is a good example. Nearly everything in quantum physics is hypothetical interpolation of patterns of behavior from very scant and non-existant hard evidence. But since half of what Stephen Hawkings (just one of many examples) talks about is purely imaginary, why isn't the scientific community trying to block HIS ideas from exploration?
"Imaginary"? I do not think this word means what you think it means.