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> PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS // WRITTEN 2006-2007 // REVISED 2025
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CRITICAL THINKING IN THE AGE OF ALGORITHMS
JULY 2023  ·  EPISTEMOLOGY  ·  AI  ·  MISINFORMATION  ·  OXFORD CRITICAL REASONING
Why reasoning skills are becoming survival skills. On conspiracy thinking, the scientific method, what AI changes about truth, and why critical thinking should be taught like mathematics.
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ON MARS — AN EVENING, A PAPER, AND THREE SCEPTICISMS
2019–2025  ·  SPACE EXPLORATION  ·  PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE  ·  PEER-REVIEWED CO-AUTHOR
How a random astronomy club night led to a journal paper. And why, despite that, I remain deeply sceptical about Mars colonisation — on biological, economic, and philosophical grounds.
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WHAT CREATED THE BIG BANG?
JUNE 2006  ·  COSMOLOGY  ·  PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
The honest admission of not knowing is considerably more interesting than a confident answer that doesn't withstand examination. On the first cause, causation before time, and why "God did it" is no answer at all.
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WHY INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS NOT SCIENCE
DECEMBER 2006  ·  PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE  ·  EVOLUTION
ID is not an alternative framework of equal standing — it is the absence of a framework dressed in scientific language. On falsifiability, irreducible complexity, and why the distinction matters.
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WHERE DOES EVIL COME FROM?
AUGUST 2007  ·  PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION  ·  THEODICY
Unde malum — whence evil? One of the oldest questions in philosophy and theology. The free will defence, natural evil, Augustine's absence-of-good, and the secular account.
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REASON AND FAITH: A RESPONSE
SEPTEMBER 2007  ·  EPISTEMOLOGY  ·  PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
The question is not whether faith and reason can coexist — they clearly can. The question is what we do when they conflict, and which starting assumptions we're entitled to treat as minimal.

> Essays originally published at reason42.com 2006-2007. Revised and expanded 2025.
> reason42.com // wondering is not optional_

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