Over in the comments to this post, The Republic of Palau makes a point that deserves wider attention, about the critiques of that infamous Lancet study:
This whole situation has another aspect: the rubbishing of most respectable research that disproves the neocon worldview. It’s all of a piece with the faith-led agenda, when carefully researched, rigidly peer-reviewed science is rubbished on ideological grounds rather than its methodology or substance. The Lancet is a world-respected medical journal, and has no political agenda. The scientists approached the research as an epistemiological exercise i.e. ‘How can you safely estimate death rates and causualties in a war situation?’
The results were reviewed and reviewed, stringently and by some of the most eminently qualified scientists in the world, but that’s apparently irrelevant. Where the Republicans don’t like scientific results, they just rubbish and ignore them. They really are making their own reality.
These really are people who, as not even Orwell predicted, would happily argue that two plus two equals five if their masters ordered it. See also the ongoing saga of Michael Fumetti^wFumento, over at Deltoid. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or to cry.