I would argue both sides do attempt "literature surveys" but they're often tainted by the desire to justify their goals. It turns out you can twist numbers to

I would argue both sides do attempt "literature surveys" but they're often tainted by the desire to justify their goals. It turns out you can twist numbers to mean whatever you want and both sides are guilty of this to some extent, though at the moment the pants-on-fire award seems to go to the right. If taken far enough, however, one gets to the level of trying to debate truth itself and "what is objective fact" which gets hairy...