Filll admits the petition can be interpreted seventeen ways from Sunday...
QUOTE(Filll on Picard Bio Talk Page)
My personal view, which disagrees with some sources, is that the petition is written so vaguely that every single scientifically literate person, would agree with it. --Filll (talk) 00:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Now I happen to think that a scientifically literate person (such as James Tour or Rosalind Picard) might agree that scientists should examine the evidence for
any proposed theory with a skeptical eye.
And so I suggested
this way of writing the paragraph on the James Tour BLP...
QUOTE(Moulton's Proposed Wording)
Controversial petitionIn February 2006, the New York Times reported that Dr. Tour was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers out of several hundred scientists and engineers whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's newly launched website promoting a controversial petition characterized as "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", which states "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." Tour's field of organic chemistry is a branch of scientific research which establishes his credentials as a practitioner and advocate of the protocols of the scientific method as they apply to all branches of science. The controversy arises from confusion over whether the statement is an expression of the technical protocols of the scientific method or an expression favoring a political agenda regarding the teaching of scientific subjects related to evolution.