An essay by this thinker imagines the “obstinate pride” needed to say that there are “nine hundred million little ants” on earth but “only my anthill is beloved of God.” Mikhail Bakunin’s God and the State uses the word “abolish” in an inversion of a quote by this thinker. This thinker’s critiques of dogmatic authority include the claim that “superstition sets the world in flame,” the plea to “crush the infamous,” and his Treatise on Tolerance. This thinker wrote that “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” This author of Letters on the English and the Philosophical Dictionary created a character who rationalizes his syphilis and the Lisbon earthquake. For 10 points, what author parodied Leibniz’s Theodicy via the character Pangloss in his novel Candide? ■END■
| Lower Mid-Atlantic | 2025-02-01 | Y | 6 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 97.83 |
| Midwest | 2025-02-01 | Y | 6 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 91.00 |
| Northeast | 2025-02-01 | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 88.25 |
| Overflow | 2025-02-01 | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 107.50 |
| Pacific Northwest | 2025-02-01 | Y | 2 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 106.50 |
| UK | 2025-02-01 | Y | 10 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 99.20 |
| Upper Mid-Atlantic | 2025-02-01 | Y | 8 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 109.38 |
| Player | Team | Opponent | Buzz Position | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ivan Stanisavljevic | Duke | Liberty C | 29 | 10 |
| Andrew Messersmith | Brandeis B | Brown A | 29 | 10 |
| Audrey Cho | Haverford A | Johns Hopkins A | 64 | -5 |
| Omer Keskin | Oxford A | Imperial A | 70 | 10 |
| Frederick Rivas-Giorgi | Yale A | Cornell B | 72 | 10 |
| Aden Sun | Chicago B | WashU B | 72 | 10 |
| Jakob Myers | Indiana A | Chicago A | 73 | 10 |
| Charles Hang | WashU A | Missouri | 75 | 10 |
| Ryan Fang | Stanford B | Purdue | 75 | -5 |
| Seraphina Charlotte Foo | Cambridge A | LSE | 75 | 10 |
| Sam McNamee | Notre Dame A | Northwestern B | 77 | 10 |
| Joseph Chambers | Virginia A | UNC B | 84 | 10 |
| Elliot Cosnett | Oxford B | Southampton A | 84 | 10 |
| Ian McDowell | Cambridge C | Sheffield | 87 | 10 |
| Jack Rado | Columbia B | Maryland B | 91 | 10 |
| Akshar Goyal | Illinois A | Illinois B | 91 | 10 |
| Michael Kearney | Harvard A | MIT A | 98 | 10 |
| Louis Cameron | Cambridge E | Warwick B | 99 | 10 |
| Anne Fjeld | Alberta | UW A | 100 | 10 |
| Ryan Rosenberg | NYU A | Penn B | 105 | 10 |
| Shiv Seshan | Cambridge B | Manchester | 108 | 10 |
| Noah Chin | Virginia Tech A | Wake Forest | 112 | 10 |
| Roan Dowling | Iowa | Northwestern A | 113 | 10 |
| John Chen | UBC | UW B | 113 | 10 |
| Isaac Mammel | Maryland A | Penn A | 113 | -5 |
| Eren Michelet | BU | UMass Boston | 113 | 10 |
| Max Neal | Harvard B | Tufts A | 113 | 10 |
| Sam Macchi | Vassar A | NYU B | 113 | 10 |
| Aum Mundhe | Rutgers A | Columbia C | 113 | 10 |
| Chris Yoo | William & Mary | South Carolina | 114 | 10 |
| Antoni Kluzowski | Warwick A | Cambridge D | 114 | 10 |
| Max Hodes | Chicago D | Illinois C | 115 | 10 |
| Max Kolda | Notre Dame B | Georgetown B | 116 | 10 |
| Michael Wu | Southampton B | Bristol | 116 | 10 |
| Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt | NYU C | Imperial B | 118 | 10 |
| Aidan Jones | Liberty A | UNC C | 119 | 10 |
| Trenton Burgess | Indiana B | Missoui S&T | 120 | 10 |
| Sinecio Morales | Johns Hopkins A | Haverford A | 121 | 10 |
| Hamish Campbell | Durham | Oxford C | 121 | 10 |
| Davis Johnson | Purdue | Stanford B | 124 | 10 |
| Nick Smemoe | UNC D | Liberty B | 129 | 10 |
| Sasha Wertime | Haverford B | George Washington B | 130 | 10 |
| Hannah Nieuwveld | Penn A | Maryland A | 130 | 10 |