Taleb probably looked into Bailey's earlier background, in particular his books Ecoscam and "The True State of the Planet, and his CEI connections came to the c

Taleb probably looked into Bailey's earlier background, in particular his books Ecoscam and "The True State of the Planet, and his CEI connections came to the conclusion that at the time he was clearly ideology-driven, if not perhaps a bit of kook (I'm not saying that's what he is -- but his language at the time was quite strident, and one can't be blamed for coming away from this impression). He definitely seems to have sobered up a bit over the years (he's taken up a much more reasonable stance on global warming, for example), but I don't blame Taleb for applying the "cautionary principle" and walking a way from a situation that he suspected might have been something of a theatrical ambush (by being asked to debate someone who was perhaps rhetorically very well skilled, but somehow also caught up in a web of ideological, pseudo-rational thinking).