The morning highlight was billed as a debate between Seed magazine's Chris Mooney and Reason magazine's Ronald Bailey on "Distorting science: Who's Worse, the Left or the Right?" In the end, however, they did not debate all that much.

Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, is up first. Mooney claims the mantle of "skeptic" and opens with the claim that "skepticism" has been misused in the climate change debate, as the scientific evidence is fairly clear. Mooney's central argument is that the Right is far worse at distorting science, at least at the present moment in the United States. Those involved in policy debates are constantly involved in spinning and cherry-picking scientific findings, but there are matters of degree. What makes the Right's distortions worse? Mooney uses several criteria: 1) the consequences of the distortions; 2) the extent of the distortions; 3) the institutionalization of the distortions; and 4) whether the distortions are made in "good faith." In each case, Mooney argues, the Right is worse today than the Left.

Mooney argues that there are two sources of the Right's distortions. One is the religious right, which distorts science for ideological purposes. The other is corporate America, which distorts science for economic gain. The religious right's attack on science is quite fundamental, insofar as it has challenged evolutionary theory and (in the case of the Discovery Institute) seeks "to defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies." The religious right does more than this, though, pushing contrarian claims with regard to stem cell research, abstinence-only education, and the like. The extent of the religious right's assault on science, its consequences and institutionalization, should be enough to win the debate, Mooney claims.

Mooney next turns to the scientific distortions of corporate America that have been embraced by the Right – and institutionalized through corporate support of conservative think tanks and policy organizations. Mooney likens this effort to the tobacco industry's effort to manufacture uncertainty about the risks of smoking, and suggests it is a "comprehensive strategy" to oppose regulation.

Mooney acknowledges environmentalist misinformation on genetically modified foods and past Malthusian claims, but he says he has yet to see evidence that environmentalists have consciously manipulated science for political purposes (I'll have to send him some). Mooney qualifies this, however, saying he would "rather be unnecessarily alarmed than blind-sided" "There are worse things you can be than chicken little," Mooney says.

Ronald Bailey is up, not to defend the Bush Administration, but to show that environmental science has been exaggerated and distorted for decades. He notes that he began writing about environmental issues when he decided to revisit the apocalyptic Malthusian claims of the 1970s. What he found is that man environmental activists were eager to exaggerate and misuse science because science is perhaps the most persuasive source of authority in modern secular society.

Bailey runs through the history of some of the most misguided projections, such as those by Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb, who urged cutting off food aid to the developing world because the situation was hopeless. Fortunately, Bailey notes, Norman Borlaug and others engaged in agricultural research launched the "green revolution," that dramatically increased food yields, preventing the famines and die-offs that Ehrlich predicted. Significantly, the famines were avoided not by following Ehrlich's policy prescriptions, but by ignoring them.

Ehrlich made his claims in the 1960s and 1970s but, Bailey notes, similar Malthusian claims are still made today. Jared Diamond, for example, chronicles many events in his book Collapse, but totally misunderstands the causes of the things he describes. Population growth is not caused by people breeding like rabbits, but because people stopped dying like flies. Population growth is slowing, however, and humanity has come nowhere close to maximizing food production.

Similarly wrong-headed claims were made by the Club of Rome, Jay Forrester and others who promoted the idea of the "Limits to Growth." These predictions failed because they did not account for the economic response to scarcity and human ingenuity. Responding to Dr. Goodstein, Bailey notes that current USGS estimates of fossil fuels are far greater than those presumed by peak oil theorists. Insofar as we have an "oil crisis" in the near term, it will be a political crisis, not a resource one. In the longer term, Bailey explained, economic signals will spur investment in alternative fuel sources as they have in the past.

Bailey next turns to the chemical-induced "cancer epidemic" predicted by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring. This epidemic never materialized, in part because many of the premises on which it was based were false. Nonetheless, the United States maintains billions of dollars to reduce the risk of cancer from synthetic chemicals, and the threat still proclaimed today by environmental activists. The National Academy of Sciences has dismissed the risk of pesticide residues on foods, but environmentalists warn of it nonetheless.

Briefly on global warming, Bailey notes he is no longer a "skeptic," but does believe environmentalists have exaggerated many of the claims for political grounds.

Mooney does not disagree with many of Bailey's claims. Rather he notes that the influence of those Bailey critiques has been less than those who currently influence policy. Those who are afraid of synthetic chemicals are not, Mooney notes, particularly influential in the Bush Administration (though, Mooney fails to note, the Bush Administration has not repealed those regulations motivated by earlier fears." Moreover, he argues, environmental activists have not been as influential in the Clinton Administration as religious and corporate interests are in the Bush Administration. Mooney also notes that "hindsight is 20/20" and "wrong predictions are a dime a dozen," but that does not mean there are no real threats on the horizon. Mooney further defends the adoption of "precautionary" regulation to protect the public when there is scientific uncertainty.

Mooney also admits that Democratic politicians have made some outlandish scientific claims, such as Senator John Edwards promise that "people like Christopher Reeve" would get up and walk were John Kerry elected President and stem cell research expanded. Such claims are outrageous, Mooney admits, but not as bad as what is currently done by those in power today on the Right.

Bailey picks up where he left off, noting that environmentalist scares have had a major policy effect. Among other things, the led to the creation of the most powerful regulatory agency in Washington, D.C. – the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet the cancer epidemic never materialized. To the contrary, cancer is on a slow decline.

Bailey briefly discusses the projections of a "nuclear winter" – which was yet another example of ginned up science on the Left (and one propagated by arch-skeptic Carl Sagan).

The campaign against biotechnology, including genetically modified foods, continues apace, Bailey notes. Environmental activists attack the technology (as do some on the Right), despite the lack of any documented case of a GMO-induced health problem in a single person. Bailey undermines his case by noting the rapid proliferation of biotech crops (despite some environmentalists' best efforts). What Bailey fails to note is that this proliferation has been slowed dramatically due to environmentalist efforts, particularly in other countries. Environmental activists may not have much influence in the Bush Administration, but they are more influential on the world stage. They have also committed atrocious acts, such as telling hungry Zimbabweans that food from biotech crops would poison them.

Bailey closes noting that science can inform policy debates, but does not dictate policy outcomes. Global warming is a threat, but so are global warming policies. For the world's poor, increasing fuel costs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will have disastrous effects. For this reason, maintaining and increasing wealth is no less important than addressing potentially harmful environmental changes.

Mooney replies that he is still more worried about the Bush Administration than he is about environmentalist groups. Fears like nuclear winter were debunked by other scientists, whereas the President at the time (Ronald Reagan) was fundamentally anti-science. Mooney agrees with Bailey on GMOs, but he does not think that environmentalist exaggerations have had a significant impact on policy. While there is a long history of political manipulation of science on both the Left and the Right, Mooney concludes, the contemporary threat from the Right is particularly "unique and scary."

Bailey notes that the Bush Administration, like all administrations, are temporary things – and science is a stronger institution than any administration. The adoption of precautionary regulation may seem wise, but it also has costs. FDA drug lag, for example, delays the adoption of new pharmaceuticals and their health benefits. Humanity may be hard-wired to be over-cautious, Bailey notes, but that does not mean it makes for good policy. Bailey closes on a positive note, suggesting that progress will continue thanks to human ingenuity, irrespective of what the politicians do.

the Q&A covers a wide range of issues. Of note, Mooney makes a bait-and-switch on the line between policy in science. When asked about the use of science under the Endangered Species Act, he defends the current "best available science" standard and decries Republican efforts to raise the scientific bar. Yet this is a policy debate, not a scientific one. The level of scientific certainty required to trigger regulatory action is a policy judgment, and Mooney wrongly suggests there is a scientific basis for preferring one standard over another (an error he also makes in his book).

In response to another question Mooney notes that many of those who seek to politicize science write popular books and articles because they cannot publish articles in peer-reviewed journals. Bailey agreed, but also notes that much politically inspired science is nonetheless published in peer-reviewed journals. "Peer review is not a perfect thing in itself," Bailey says. The "gold standard" of science is not peer review, but replication. We should protect it from politics, but not "fetishize it."