Steven A. Wernke, Professor of Anthropology and Department Chair at Vanderbilt University, and Steve #1500 of NCSE's Project Steve.
With the addition of Steve #1500 on February 12, 2025, NCSE's Project Steve attained the 1.5 kilosteve mark. Signatories to Project Steve endorse a statement reading:
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.
Steve #1500 is Steven A. Wernke, Professor of Anthropology and Department Chair at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
"Evolution is a key scientific principle in anthropology, just as it is in biology and geology, and it is essential to paleoanthropology — the study of human origins," Wernke commented. "As a scientist and humanities scholar in Tennessee, which enacted the first ban on teaching human evolution a century ago in 1925, and which still has a statute on the books encouraging teachers to misrepresent evolution as scientifically controversial, I'm proud to add my voice to my fellow Steves in supporting the teaching of evolution."
"It's particularly appropriate that Steve #1500 is a scientist at Vanderbilt University," NCSE Executive Director Amanda Townley remarked, "since NCSE and the Evolutionary Studies Initiative at Vanderbilt are collaborating on holding a symposium at Vanderbilt to celebrate — and attempt to learn from — the centennial anniversary of the Scopes trial, held in nearby Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925."
The Scopes "Monkey" Trial Centennial Symposium, to be held July 12 and 13, 2025, features a stellar roster of speakers, including NCSE's Townley. "We're truly delighted to be able to offer this fantastic symposium," commented Antonis Rokas, the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University and director of its Evolutionary Studies Initiative. "And for a Vanderbilt colleague to become Steve #1500 is just icing on the cake!"
A tongue-in-cheek parody of the long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" or "scientists who dissent from Darwinism," Project Steve mocks such lists by restricting its signatories to scientists whose first name is Steve. ("Steve" was selected in honor of the late Stephen Jay Gould, a supporter of NCSE and a dauntless defender of evolution education.)
About 1% of the United States population possesses Steve (or a cognate such as Stephanie, Esteban, Istvan, Stefano, or even Tapani — the Finnish equivalent) as a first name, so each signatory represents about 100 potential signatories. The fact that there are 1500 Steve signatories therefore suggests that at least 150,000 qualified scientists would endorse the statement if the name requirement were omitted.
