Here is some useful information...
The two-sentence, 32-word, untitled petition that Picard and 100 other scientists and academics signed in 2001 reads as follows:
QUOTE(Untitled Petition of 2001)
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
Picard says this:
QUOTE(Rosalind Picard)
My agreement with the petition's first statement is based mostly on my experiments trying to get statistical physics simulations to generate complex specific patterns out of randomness. I don't know anybody who would disagree with the second statement in the petition.
To my mind, the only thing wrong with the second statement is that it's not broad enough. As a science educator, I encourage students to carefully examine the evidence for
any theory.
As to the complexity of life, no one knows how DNA-based life as we know it ever got started in the first place. The puzzle of abiogenesis remains an unsolved problem in molecular biology.