EVOLUTION-TOUTING SCIENTISTS MAKE POINT WITH STEVES LIST

Saturday, June 12, 2004

People who oppose the teaching of evolution in the schools or who want nonscientific theories such as "intelligent design" to be part of the curriculum are fond of claiming that evolution is "a theory in crisis" and that "growing numbers" of scientists now dispute it.

As purported evidence for their claim, they compile lists of scientists -- well, some of them are scientists -- who agree with them. They are very short lists, compared with the hundreds of thousands of scientists who understand that evolution by natural selection is the foundation of all the biological sciences, but how to make that point to, say, members of state school boards who are neither scientists themselves nor well prepared to evaluate competing claims about what is science and what is not?

Evolutionary biologists' light-hearted answer: Project Steve.

The National Center for Science Education, whose motto is, "Defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools" (at ncseweb.org - click on "resources" and then the Project Steve box on the right) came up with the idea of parodying the intelligent design lists by making their own list of biologists willing to sign a strong statement in support of evolution, with the only requirement being that their names had to be Steve, or some variation of it (Stephanie or Stefan, for instance).

Matt Inlay, then a graduate student in biology at the University of California at San Diego, suggested that Steve would be an appropriate name, to honor Steven Jay Gould, who died not long before the project got started. (There are no plans to repeat it with other names; as the center says on its Web site, "It's only funny once.") According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 1 percent of the U.S. population has a Steve name.

Since one list widely circulated by intelligent design proponents has 100 names, the center originally hoped to get 100 signers by circulating the statement to a limited number of qualifying scientists. But scientists like to chatter among themselves by e-mail, and so as soon as word got out, in February 2003, lots more people volunteered. The Steve-o-meter currently stands at 435, executive director Eugenie Scott said. About two-thirds of them are biologists but the others include such luminaries as Stephen Hawking.

The serious purpose of this slightly goofy project is to get people, including journalists, to ask, when they see one of the intelligent design lists, "How many Steves are on it?" The answer highlights just how tiny a percentage of scientists the intelligent design lists represent.

Inlay, who earned his doctorate in biology in 2003, posted an update on the Web log The Panda's Thumb April 5 (available at that date in the archives for pandasthumb.org). After eliminating duplicates, he found a total of nine on various intelligent design lists, none of them a biologist.

If you count only biology professors, Inlay notes, the Steves are supporters of evolution by about 300 to zero. "Is it unfair to only count biologists?" he writes. "Maybe, but it's very revealing that the closer the subject of the degree is to evolutionary biology, the fewer proportion of dissenters are."

Of course, people who are disinclined to accept evolution are probably very unlikely to go on to get a degree in the subject. But if they don't, why should their opinions on the subject be more credible than the opinions of people who have studied it for years?

Inlay also cites some of the responses of the intelligent design crowd to Project Steve.

One claimed the project made it obvious that advocates for evolution feel their ideology and livelihood are being threatened.

"OK. Right," Inlay says. "I think they have a word for that. It's called 'projection.' "

An article on the Web site for Focus on the Family quotes a biologist who did not sign the statement and who said the "Steves" on the list are bowing to peer pressure.

"Over the years, you have a choice to make as a scientist -- if you're going to fess up to reality, or if you're going to desire to hold on to your career, your lifestyle, et cetera," said Stephen Lawler.

If he doesn't believe the center's statement, of course he shouldn't sign it; but I find it hard to believe that peer pressure would affect, say, Hawking or Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg. How hard can it be to just not answer an e-mail inviting you to sign?

"If I were a parent whose children were entering high school," Inlay concludes, "and I kept reading in the news that many scientists thought evolution was a theory in crisis and that students were being prevented from hearing about this controversy by dogmatic Darwinists, I would want to know that in reality, 99 percent of scientists support evolution, and only an insignificant minority question it."

Parents should indeed know that.