Dragging God into public schools

To the editor:

In David Limbaugh's recent "Science and faith" column, he states that the argument for intelligent design is not a "concoction" manufactured by "Christians who were already convinced that God created the world but needed a scientific theory around which to wrap their unscientific faith." To bolster this assertion, he cites the writings of several "scientists": Michael Behe, William Dembski and Jonathan Wells.

What Limbaugh doesn't tell the reader is that these "scientists" are fellows at the Center for Science and Culture, the think-tank wing of the Discovery Institute whose goal, according to its own statement, is "to defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" and to replace it with "the theistic understanding that nature and humans are created by God." It is clear, then, that Limbaugh's actual purpose is his usual one: to dissemble in order to bypass the First Amendment non-establishment clause and drag the Christian God into public schools.

JOHN C. BIERK, Cape Girardeau