"The mailing is clearly designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article, which is full of half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review,"
Have you seen this allegation, ancient geezer?
I've seen the allegations as cogitator has posted it or something similar before.
The reality, as far as those participitating by actually signing the petitions has not stand up to the allegation from what I have been able to determine.
It looks like most felt they were signing a petition with which they agreed with in substance judging from the statements of the sourcewatch posting:
"Notwithstanding this rebuke, the Oregon Petition managed to garner 15,000 signatures within a month's time. S. Fred Singer called the petition "the latest and largest effort by rank-and-file scientists to express their opposition to schemes that subvert science for the sake of a political agenda."
Any allegation or question that might have to do with supposed sponsorship apparently had little to do with the bulk of participation in the petition, especially with NAS disclaiming any connection prior to the majority of folks apparently signing on after the NAS disclaimers, or in spite of such disclaimers as the case may be.
Course there is the possibiltiy that NAS expressly disclaiming any connections with the petition might have encourged some level of the participation and thereby affected the results somewhat ;O)
Just to narrow this down, do you reject that the authors of the "Oregon Petition" attempted to pull a fast one by enclosing what looked like a peer reviewed NAS article? Again, from Sourcewatch:
The Oregon Petition, sponsored by the OISM, was circulated in April 1998 in a bulk mailing to tens of thousands of U.S. scientists. In addition to the petition, the mailing included what appeared to be a reprint of a scientific paper. Authored by OISM's Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon, and Zachary W. Robinson, the paper was titled "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Also included was a reprint of a December 1997, Wall Street Journal editorial, "Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth, by Arthur and Zachary Robinson. A cover note signed "Frederick Seitz/Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A./President Emeritus, Rockefeller University", may have given some persons the impression that Robinson's paper was an official publication of the academy's peer-reviewed journal.
Do you have a link to a rebuttal from OISM?
Any allegation or question that might have to do with supposed sponsorship apparently had little to do with the bulk of participation in the petition, especially with NAS disclaiming any connection prior to the majority of folks apparently signing on after the NAS disclaimers, or in spite of such disclaimers as the case may be.
A valid point, if the signers had heard of the NAS disclaimer. Perhaps they didn't. Do you know of a discussion of this point?