Martin Wallace is a retired physician with special training in kidney diesease and its management, and a degree in pharmacology in addition to the MB., ChB. Since retirement he has had time to resume his education in other fields.
Natural product, unnatural practice
1 May 2013
Vitamin C is essential to human health, but our understanding of its role has been perverted by practitioners of 'alternative' medicine.
Avoiding the trap of belief-dependant realism
1 February 2012
The Believing Brain: how we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths by Michael Shermer. Times books, New York. 386pp. ISBN 978-0-8050-9125-0. Reviewed by Martin Wallace.
The natural origins of morality
1 May 2011
The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values. Sam Harris. 2010. Free Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-4391-7121-9 Reviewed by Martin Wallace.
Manipulation, chiropractic, and the idols of Francis Bacon
1 February 2011
Chiropractic has had a colourful history since its invention in the 19th Century.
Truth is the daughter of time, and not of authority: Aspects of the Cartwright Affair
1 August 2010
The 'Unfortunate Experiment' at National Women's Hospital has entered the national folklore as a notorious case of medical misconduct. But there is still disagreement about what actually happened.
The physiology of the placebo effect
1 May 2009
Placebos may contain no active ingredients, but they have real effects on the human brain. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics 2008 conference in Hamilton, September 26-28.
The Pitfalls of Homeopathy or, The Royal Assent to the Ultimate Dilution
1 August 2008
Martin Wallace particularly likes two of the five definitions of 'pitfall' in the OED: