The project was named in honor of the
paleontologist and essayist
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002). It began in 2003, with an official press release on February 16, 2003. The press release was issued at the
American Association for the Advancement of Science's 2003 convention in
Denver,
Colorado, after a lecture by
Lawrence Krauss titled "Scientific Ignorance as a Way of Life: From Science Fiction in Washington to Intelligent Design in the Classroom." Krauss made the actual announcement and directed the reporters to NCSE Director
Eugenie Scott, who was sitting in the audience in the front row. As the news of Project Steve spread by
word of mouth, ever-increasing numbers of Steves contacted the NCSE, and the list continued to grow. Project Steve captured the attention of the media. The first media coverage included articles in the
Washington Times,
Science, the
Oakland Tribune and an interview of NCSE director
Eugenie Scott by
Australian science journalist and radio broadcaster
Robyn Williams for the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio show,
The Science Show.
The Science Show arranged for Geoff Sirmai and David Fisher of the
Australian musical comedy team "Comic Roasts" to write the "
Steve Song", a parody of the
Monty Python song about Spam, for Project Steve. The song had its debut on
The Science Show episode featuring the interview of Scott which aired on
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National on March 8, 2003.
Cambridge University Lucasian Professor of Mathematics Stephen Hawking was the 300th Steve to sign the list. By the time the announcement was made on April 21, 2003, another five had joined to bring the total number of Steves to 305. By December 26, 2003,
Saint Stephen's Day,
Project Steve had grown to 400 scientists. As Project Steve reached the 400 scientist mark, the NCSE decided to offer a commemorative novelty Project Steve
t-shirt. The t-shirt is emblazoned with the proclamation, "Over _00 Scientists named Steve Agree, Teach Evolution!" in large letters, where the blank contains the most recent hundreds mark. A list of the current signatories is included in a smaller typeface on the t-shirt as well.
Eugenie Scott,
Glenn Branch and
Nick Matzke published an article in the July/August 2004 issue of the
Annals of Improbable Research (with all the Steves that had signed up 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". The data were obtained using NCSE's "pioneering experimental steveometry apparatus"—the
t-shirt. Shortly after the second anniversary of Project Steve in February 2005, 543 Steves had signed the list. A front-page story in the
Ottawa Citizen marking this event was published on February 20, 2005. On September 12, 2005, the 600th Steve signed the list. By February 16, 2006, the third anniversary of
Project Steve's official launch, the Steve-o-meter stood at 700. On April 24, 2007, the list had grown to 800 Steves. In February 2009, the milestone #1000 was assigned to professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Steven P. Darwin (no relation to
Charles). Subsequent milestones were #1100 on August 25, 2009, #1200 on April 6, 2012, and #1300 on January 15, 2014. There have been articles about
Project Steve in
The Times,
Scientific American,
Yale Daily News,
Focus on the Family's
Family News in Focus,
The Guardian,
MIT's
TechTalk, and
The Arizona Republic, among many others.
Evolution ==Reactions==