Project Steve
Project Steve is a propaganda campaign started by the anti-creationist group the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). It attempts to promote the validity of evolution by means of a logically-fallacious argument ad populum.
Project Steve is named after the late Stephen Jay Gould, and is a list of nearly 1000 scientists named Steve or variations thereof (including Stephanie) who agree with a statement supporting evolution.[1] Approximately 1% of U.S. residents have first names that qualify. [2] The New York Times reported in 2006 that 54 percent of the 700+ Steves work in biology.[3]
The NCSE claims that the list is a "tongue-in-cheek" response to creationist and intelligent design lists which "try to convince the public that evolution is somehow being rejected by scientists".[4] However, such lists are actually rebuttals to earlier argument ad populum evolutionist claims that all scientists accept evolution, or that creationists don't have scientific qualifications.
It is believed Project Steve was crafted as a response to Intelligent Design, traditional marriage and those who promote the slogan “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” [5]
References
- ↑ National Center for Science Education (NSCE), Project Steve [1] The statement says: "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."
- ↑ National Center for Science Education (NSCE), Project Steve FAQ[2]
- ↑ New York Times, Ask Science, Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition, by Kenneth Chang, Published February 21, 2006 [3]
- ↑ National Center for Science Education (NSCE), Project Steve [4] (NSCE)
- ↑ California Weather Exposes Fiction of Global Warming NewsMax, February 14, 2009