"::The purpose of this discussion on the proposed intervening section is to illuminate the controversial conclusions and impression that readers took away from the story, because they conflated the reported claims of the DI as described in the story with independently verifiable facts.  The analysis by  Skip Evans illustrates this confusion and provides a reliable source that the claims of the DI are not necessarily valid.  That's one way to establish the controversial nature of stories about the DI which contrast the published claims of the DI to published remarks by signatories like Salthe and Davidson ridiculing the DI's interpretation.

If you want a reliable source that the article by Chang is controversial in its own right, on multiple points, you can take a look at the article's Ask Science Q&A; page on the NYT wherein Chang responds to commentary and criticisms of his piece, and admits that parts of it are slanted toward highlighting the anti-evolution signers and not the pro-evolution ones.  Chang says, ""This article focused on Discovery's petition and thus I did not interview evolution supporters.""

Elsewhere, you have good evidence that there are evolution supporters among the 103 initial and subsequent signers, notably including Bob Davidson, whose story came to light and is featured in the main Wikipedia entry on the Darwin Dissent Controversy.

This intentional snubbing of evolution-supporters among those interviewed by Chang for comments misleads readers about the statistical mix of those who signed the petition, giving some people the impression (per the desires of the DI) that all signers are variously ""anti-evolution"" or ""Darwin dissenters.""  The contemporaneous analysis by Skip Evans reinforces that element of the controversy.

When one realizes that Chang focused the story on the anti-evolution signers (many of whom joined after DI went public, and when one observes that Chang fails to solicit a quote from Picard (even though he mentions her name), one is left wondering which side of the fence she (and others of the 103) reside on.  The purpose of all this is to cast doubt on the unverified presumption (suggested by the existing section which I am forbidden from touching) that Picard belongs to the anti-evolution dissenters.  In other words, I am saying that some of the Wikipedia editors evidently fell into the trap which the DI set, luring readers into believing that all 103 scientists adhered to DI's dubious characterization of them.  

The length of the intervening piece needs to be longer than the section it precedes, because the current section adopts without proof the thesis that Picard is among those belonging to the anti-evolution dissenters.  The proposed intervening section is designed to examine the evidence for the unproven thesis adopted in the existing section and determine whether the evidence for it is credible or conclusive.  As you well know, a proof is typically longer than the theorem.  What's in the proposed intervening section is an examination of the omitted proof, in which the outcome appears to be that the missing proof does not seem to exist, and in fact there is good evidence at hand that the dubious thesis adopted by the existing section is simply false (and therefore unprovable).  If it is false, then it is also potentially libelous. Therefore, establishing the truth or falsehood of the thesis is crucial in order to protect Wikipedia from inadvertently publishing false and defamatory material that slipped through the filters intended to examine the evidence with a keenly skeptical eye.

What any Wikipedia editor happens to know for a fact about the status of the petition in the intervening years is not evidence that anyone whose name appeared in nationally printed ads back in 2001 had the slightest inkling of what the DI was up to in the meantime.  Perhaps Wikipedia editors found this out by doing painstaking research on the DI.  Stanley N. Salthe said in 2006 in the Times article we are examining that he had never heard of the DI.  That's well-sourced evidence that some of those who signed had no clue that the DI even existed, let alone was maintaining a growing list of names.  Therefore one cannot draw any verifiable conclusions about what most of the 103 original signers knew of the DI prior to the 2006 Times story.  

One of the reasons the story is controversial is because it fails to point out that the DI had reprised and evolved a 2001 petition that predated any of the disputed assertions regarding its inherent meaning or its re-interpretion as a testimonial in favor of DI's political agenda.

The two sources which establish the controversial nature of the story are the above mentioned [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/0