Editing Frederick Seitz (section)

==Criticism==

In the early 1970s, Seitz became unpopular for his support of the Vietnam war, a position which most of his colleagues on the [[President's Science Advisory Committee]] did not share. In the late 1970s, Seitz also parted company with his scientific colleagues on questions of nuclear preparedness. Seitz was committed to "a muscular military strengthened by the most technologically advanced weaponry", while the scientific community generally supported arms limitations talks and treaties. Seitz was also ardently [[anti-communist]] and his support for aggressive weapons programs was a reflection of this.<ref name = Oresk>Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik M. (2010). ''[[Merchants of Doubt]]: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming'', Bloomsbury, pp. 25–29.</ref>

In their book ''[[Merchants of Doubt]]'', science historians [[Naomi Oreskes]] and [[Erik M. Conway]] state that Seitz and a group of other scientists fought the scientific evidence and spread confusion on many of the most important issues of the 20th and 21st centuries like harmfulness of [[tobacco smoke]], [[acid rain]], [[Chlorofluorocarbon|CFC]]s, [[pesticides]] and [[global warming]]. Seitz said that American science had become "rigid", and his colleagues had become closed-minded and dogmatic. According to Oreskes and Conway, Seitz used normal uncertainties of scientific evidence to spread doubt about the harmfulness of tobacco smoke.<ref name="Oresk" />

Seitz was also a principal organizer of the infamous [[Oregon Petition]], where numerous signatories claimed that there was no evidence that greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming. Despite Seitz being a past President of the US [[National Academy of Sciences]], the NAS issued a press release stating "The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science."<ref>{{cite web |publisher=US National Academy of Sciences |title=Statement by the Council of the National Academy of Sciences Regarding Global Change Petition |date=April 20, 1998 |url=http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=s04201998 |access-date=2019-12-16}}</ref> Journalists subsequently found that the identities of the vast majority of signatories could not be verified,<ref>Brown, Joe. 700 Club anchor touted global warming skeptics' petition reportedly signed by non-scientists, fictitious characters. Media Matters, 14th Feb 2006. https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2006/02/14/700-club-anchor-touted-global-warming-skeptics/134878</ref> because the petition's organizers had no process for identity authentication. Further, the supposed scientific article that claimed to refute global warming (and which accompanied the petition) was in fact a non-peer reviewed article from
the "Journal of the [[American Association of Physicians and Surgeons]]", which was published by Arthur Robinson, the petition's co-organizer.<ref>{{cite news |last=Grandia |first=Kevin |title=The 30,000 Global Warming Petition Is Easily-Debunked Propaganda |date=August 22, 2009 |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/the-30000-global-warming_b_243092.html |work=The Huffington Post}} Updated December 6, 2017.</ref> This journal advocates scientifically discredited viewpoints such as claiming that there is no connection between the HIV virus and AIDS, and is not indexed in [[PubMed]].

Oreskes and Conway were critical of Seitz's involvement in the tobacco industry. They stated that Seitz stood against the scientific consensus that smoking was dangerous to people's health, and helped to create confusion and doubt on this issue.