A Discussion on God's Debris by Scott Adams

First, let me begin by saying I'm not sure that this is the place that this conversation should go — I figure it is, as I would like the conversation to stay on the topics discussed within this book, if not, feel free to change it.

I was wondering if anyone has read Scott Adams' Gods Debris before? I would like to see a discussion about it come to the forum, just to see what everyone thought about it, and to pick apart the thought experiment therein.

If you haven't read it, please do so! It is a very interesting and QUICK read. I knocked it out just this morning at work in less than an hour, and I'm an average reader.

You can read it for free here I hope to have some lively discussion on this cool little book!

Alright, then. I have enjoyed Scott Adams' other books in the past, the Dilbert-related ones (Dilbert Future, Joy of Work, Way of the Weasel). I think they influenced my thinking a fair bit.

I've read it. Very idiosyncratic meaning of «Occam's Razor», fo' sho'.

No kidding... My brain is still reeling a little from it. So, does anyone have any inkling on the Mr. Avatar's fallacy of thinking that they challenge you to find?

“Does it strike you as odd that there isn’t more evidence today of the mutations that drive evolution?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Shouldn’t we be seeing in today’s living creatures the preview of the next million years of evolution? Where are the two-headed humans who will become overlords of the one-headed people, the fish with unidentified organs that will evolve to something useful over the next million years, the cats who are developing gills? We see some evidence of mutations today, but mostly trivial ones, not the sort of radical ones there must have been in the past, the sort that became precursors of brains, eyes, wings, and internal organs.

“And why does evolution seem to move in one direction, from simpler to more complex? Why aren’t there any higher life forms evolving into simpler, hardier creatures? If mutations happen randomly, you would expect evolution to work in both directions. But it only works in one, from simple to complex.” He continued.

“And why has the number of species on earth declined for the past million years? The rate of the formation of new species was once faster than the rate of extinction, but that has reversed. Why? Can it all be explained by meteors and human intervention?

“And how does the first member of a new species find someone to breed with? Being a new species means you can no longer breed with the members of your parents’ species. If mutations are the trigger for evolution, the mutations must happen regularly and in such similar ways that the mutants can find each other to breed. You would think we would notice more mutations if it happens that easily.”

Well, for one...

edited 3rd Mar '11 9:59:48 AM by Penguin4Senate

Basically he was making stuff up and calling it the simplest hypothesis.

I could do the same thing but make up something entirely different, might do so later for fun.

I YKTTW'd that trope, by the way. =D

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:07:11 AM by Tzetze

Also:

His idea that the human race is slowly rebuilding God via things like the internet and so on, surely it falls into the same error picked up earlier; that humans believe they are the most important things that God has created. That we are the only ones that could rebuild the deity.

It was okay. I wasn't that impressed with his system, but it's nice to see something like that from an amateur who doesn't feel the need to cite someone every five seconds.

@Penguin: More specifically: Evolutionary Levels

"One popular misconception seems to be how the entirety of evolution is pre-programmed, past and future. Evolutionary states that don't exist yet are just waiting in human DNA to be triggered by rather simple means, as opposed to the culmination of little changes brought on by passing down genes over hundreds of generations. Goes hand in hand with the idea that a certain evolutionary path is "supposed to" happen — as a some sort of biological "predestination"."

At first I thought that what he had to say was clever and well thought out. But then he got to a topic that I'm fairly knowledgeable about (biology and evolution) and I thought "wait, this guy doesn't actually know what he's talkng about." At least he pointed out in his intro that he might get some stuff wrong because everything he says is just his best knowledge on the subject, so props for at least coming clean about that (Unlike some people).

edited 3rd Mar '11 12:37:54 PM by zoulza

Aaaaah, intellectual stimulation! It's been so long since I had some!

^^It's not supposed to be rigorous or anything - even said that his views don't match any of the characters', though that could of course be a Parody Retcon-y thing. It's still an interesting thought experiment.

I feel good about myself because I had the mental strength to recognize and resist the hypnosis tactics used by the book despite reading it straight through start to finish.

edited 3rd Mar '11 4:51:14 PM by PDown

Or is that exactly what he wanted?

Hypnosis tactics? Care to elaborate? I've not heard about these.

It's mentioned on the tropes page here, which lists Subliminal Seduction.

What I was trying to say was what examples are there in the book?

I imagine that the second person would be a hypnosis tactic, as well as several other things I'm not educated about.

So is Choose Your Own Adventure hypnosis then? I mean it's feeding second-person-you some rather horrific things.

I don't think it's hypnosis, but I do think it uses some fairly cheap tricks in an attempt to convince.