Bob Metcalfe is a teacher and skeptic from Wellington.
Fundamentalism from the inside
1 February 2008
Religion Gone Bad, by Mel White, Penguin, 2006. Reviewed by Bob Metcalfe.
A Close-Run Thing
1 November 2003
The Eugenics movement in New Zealand had legislative successes greater than anywhere in the world outside the USA and Nazi Germany
Dummies Guide a Bit of a Parson's Egg
1 May 2003
These books are all subtitled "A Reference for the Rest of Us!". Perhaps I'm prejudiced but as far as I'm concerned, dummies is a better term for anyone who uses alternative medicine. Having said that, this book, written by a chiropractor and a science writer with a PhD in the history of medicine and science, is not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
That Old-Time Religion
1 February 2000
I didn't wish to begin a debate about the issues surrounding religion in the 16th and 17th-century, nor would I ever wish to stop anyone from taking in interest in history. All I wanted to do was to point out that history is an academic discipline the same as any other, and it is dangerous to make pronouncements of such a dogmatic nature in the subject in which one has not been trained.