The point of the first is that being a skeptic about certain aspects of Darwin's theory of evolution primarily through natural selection does not equate to being anti-science or scientifically inept.
Nope. It's point is to fool people into believing that the "controversy" about the validity of evolutionary biology is, in any way, scientific.
In fact, the truth of the purpose of the list, and the manner in which it was procured, leaves any reasonable observer to conclude that the Discovery Institute, who is responsible for it, had no goal in mind except to defraud the public and to bear false witness against science and those who practice science.
Those bastards.
The point of the second is to ridicule the first.
No, because you can't ridicule something that is, itself, already ridiculous.
The point of the second was to rebut the first and the notion that there was actually anything scientific about the "controversy" surrounding evolution.
And to press home that point, the sponsors of the second petition limited signatories to those who name was "Stephen" or a variation thereof (in honor of the late great Dr. Gould.) That excludes 99% of the population.*
But even counting only 1% of the folks who we would statistically expect to sign it, the second petition has more signatures in absolute numbers than the first.
*Think of it as the scientists taking on the anti-science group with not only one hand tied behind their backs, but 99% of their body tied behind their backs...
Okay... This is going to take a lot of italics.
Come on, now. You don't really believe that nonsense, do you? Following that line of reasoning, nobody at FR would ever be able to successfully ridicule John Kerry or Helen Thomas. Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter would find their careers effectively dead, and H.L Mencken's never would have occured.
Since Coulter and Steyn's careers aren't dead and Mencken's did occur, I'll assume you don't really believe that nonsense,and what you really mean is that the issues promulgated by the Discovery Institute are actually non-issues; that considering them anything but that, is silly from a scientific standpoint, and that therefore any point it purports to make ought to be suspect.
However, that really doesn't address anything I said; nor does referring to those who approve of the first list as being anti-science. You may find the question "already ridiculous" but to simply claim that the signers are anti-science because they agree with its statement still begs said question by running afoul of the "No true Scotsman fallacy".
Suppose I assert no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. You counter this by pointing out that your friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge. I then say "Ah, yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
It's one thing to say that ID isn't really science, and it is another to say that no true scientists endorse it. It's that latter claim that I think can't be made without committing the NTS fallacy.
As for Stephen Jay Gould, I'm a little surprised you would describe him as "great". According to John Maynard Smith, "the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory."
Outside of his specialty, of course, Gould is well known for having written the Mismeasure of Man, a screed attacking the Bell Curve and its authors as pseudo-scientists rather than dealing with its facts and arguments-- plainly, in the case of the late, great, Richard Hernstein in particular, an example of the No True Scotsman Fallacy.