Ryan and Debi Cragun’s Blog

In case you’ve never heard of “Project Steve” of the National Center for Science Education, here’s a quick recap:

NCSE’s “Project Steve” is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of “scientists who doubt evolution” or “scientists who dissent from Darwinism.” (For examples of such lists, see the FAQs.)

Creationists draw up these lists to convince the public that evolution is somehow being rejected by scientists, that it is a “theory in crisis.” Most members of the public lack sufficient contact with the scientific community to know that this claim is totally unfounded. NCSE has been exhorted by its members to compile a list of thousands of scientists affirming the validity of the theory of evolution, but although we easily could have done so, we have resisted such pressure. We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists!

Project Steve mocks this practice with a bit of humor, and because “Steves” are only about 1% of scientists, it incidentally makes the point that tens of thousands of scientists support evolution. And it honors the late Stephen Jay Gould, NCSE supporter and friend.

We’d like to think that after Project Steve, we’ll have seen the last of bogus “scientists doubting evolution” lists, but it’s probably too much to ask. We do hope that at least when such lists are proposed, reporters and other citizens will ask, “but how many Steves are on your list!?”

Well, if you hurry and check, the latest Steve on the list is non other than Steven Wayne Morgan, Debi’s brother.  That page is regularly updated with the latest Steve, so catch it before it goes away.  Below is a screenshot for when another Steve is added to the list.

Very cool!

For those who don’t know, my family has a blog for sharing funny stories. I don’t hear funny stories from my family very often anymore (unfortunately), but whenever I do, I post them over there. My sister just sent me a good one. You should check it out.

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Now playing: Nina Gerber - Back Roads
via FoxyTunes

Debi’s been on an anti-”alternative medicine” kick as of late. She found this comic today that gave us both a good laugh:

Kind of drives home the point
(courtesy of http://www.dcscience.net/)

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Now playing: Fireside Orchestra - The 12 Days of Christmas
via FoxyTunes

Caught this on one of the blogs I regularly read. Boy does it put the argument about gay marriage into perspective:

I successfully defended my dissertation yesterday! Hooray! A few minor revisions and I can finally turn my attention to getting chapters from it published. With all the preparation the defense required, I basically haven’t been doing much else - including blogging. But life has continued…

I’m grading mid-terms from the three classes I’m teaching this quarter and caught this quote that gave me a good laugh. One of the assignments I give the students in my sociology of religion courses is to write a religious autobiography. In describing his parents’ devotion to Catholicism, this student made a slight error in his phrasing,

“They practiced their faith at home by having a crucifixion in every room…”