Project Steve

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Project Steve is a list of scientists with the name Stephen or a variation thereof (e.g., Stephanie, Stefan, Esteban, etc.) who "support evolution". It is produced by the National Center for Science Education as a "tongue-in-cheek parody" of creationist attempts to collect a list of scientists who "doubt evolution", poking fun at such endeavors in a "light-hearted" manner to make it clear that "We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists!"[1] However, at the same time the project is a genuine collection of scientists, and despite its restriction to only scientists with names like "Steve"—restricting the list to roughly 1% of the total population of the Western World—it is longer and contains many more eminent scientists (and in particular biologists) than any creationist list.

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[edit] Overview

The project was named in honor of the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Eminent scientists on the list include Stephen Hawking (who, like Gould, is so eminent that he has appeared on The Simpsons [2]) as well as both Nobel Prize-winning Steves in science, Steven Chu and Steven Weinberg. The "Steve-o-meter" provides an updated total, and numbers 772 Steves as of December 4, 2006.[3]

The signed statement reads:

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools.

The NCSE also produces a T-shirt which includes in large letters: "Over _00 Scientists named Steve Agree, Teach Evolution!" where the blank contains the most recent hundreds mark. In 2004, Eugenie C. Scott, Glenn Branch and Nick Matzke published an article in in the Annals of Improbable Research (with all the Steves signed to that point listed as co-authors) called The Morphology of Steve which contained "the first scientific analysis of the sex, geographic location, and body size of scientists named Steve"[4]. The data were obtained using NCSE's "pioneering experimental steveometry apparatus" - the t-shirt.

William Dembski, fellow of the Discovery Institute, whose "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" petition has four Steves[5] has said that " If Project Steve was meant to show that a considerable majority of the scientific community accepts a naturalistic conception of evolution, then the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) could have saved its energies -- that fact was never in question. The more interesting question was whether any serious scientists reject a naturalistic conception of evolution"[6].

Inspired by Project Steve, and motivated by media coverage of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism during the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, R. Joe Brandon initiated a four-day, word-of-mouth petition of scientists in support of evolution in October 2005. During the four-day drive A Scientific Support For Darwinism And For Public Schools Not To Teach Intelligent Design As Science gathered 7733 signatories verifiable as scientists. During the four days of the petition, it received 20 times as many signatures at a rate 690,000% higher than the Discovery Institute can claim. PrNewsWire Oct, 2005

[edit] See Also

[edit] References

  1. ^ NCSE Project Steve
  2. ^ Hawking is Steve #300
  3. ^ Steve-o-meter
  4. ^ Eugenie C. Scott, Glenn Branch and Nick Matzke (2004). "The Morphology of Steve". Annals of Improbable Research 10 (4): 24-29.
  5. ^ Scientific Dissent from Darwinism from the Discovery Institute
  6. ^ Project Steve - Establishing the Obvious William Dembski, Discovery Institute.

[edit] External links

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