I think the attempted fisking is a bit flat, but I agree with your ultimate assessment. The reason I think that the fisking is flat is because it attributes to Mr. Adams the straw man that he has set up as the atheist’s position.  The line of reasoning that you are fisking is one that he wants to attribute to atheists and then ridicule.

He does not believe that the Big Bang created Dilbert.  He wants to say atheists believe that.  Reread this portion:

And let’s say it composes some music, designs some evening gowns, and paints some lovely pictures too. Now do you conclude that the blob is intelligent?

It’s a trick question because atheists believe that the Big Bang did all of those things and more.

It seems to me that what Mr. Adams wants to do a bit of table turning.  Maybe I’m giving him more credit than he deserves, but it appears that he wants to apply a similar line of reasoning that we (human beings) are but vehicles for DNA survival (See Dawkins) and that DNA is responsible for much of our behaviors, to the Big Bang.  That is, extend that line of thinking that says we can break down what we are and back it up a bit further from DNA to the chemical compounds of which DNA is made.  Then extend it further from the chemical compounds back to the Big Bang.  Then attribute this line of reasoning to atheists.

He does not say that specifically, and his writing is horribly muddled so I could be wrong.  Nevertheless, I think its fair to say that is what he wanted to do.  He failed, but that seems to be the road he wanted to travel. 

I like the thought, but the execution sucks.

I’ve never been a big Dilbert fan myself, perhaps because the only office I ever worked in was the Berkeley Barb, so I can’t really get behind the office mindset.  That aside, whatever respect I had for Scott Adams went out the window when I followed the debate with PZ Myers that Les mentioned above.

Now, PZ can be pretty caustic, but he was quite civil at first over on Adams’ blog.  But Adams dismissed him loftily and snarkily, along with everyone else who disagreed with him.  He sounds like a conceited kid with a lot of money.  And as far as his powers of reasoning go…

I take the practical approach – that something is fascist if it unambiguously performs tasks that require fascism. Writing Mein Kampf required fascism. The Big Bang wrote Mein Kampf. Therefore, the Big Bang is a Nazi, and you and I are created by that same Nazi. Therefore, we are created by an Nazi entity.

Sounds logical to me…

I do not think Adam was serious there. He must have wrote that peace to get a debate started. Because the holes in his logic are too big.

On the other hand, when he is serious, it is a very disturbing bit of philosophy.

But Adams dismissed him loftily and snarkily, along with everyone else who disagreed with him.  He sounds like a conceited kid with a lot of money.

Adams and PZ are both into lofty and snarky - that’s their schtick.  PZ could have been completely gracious on their second encounter, wouldn’t have mattered after the nasty things he’s said about Adams in the past.  They are both entertaining to read but I wouldn’t care to be stuck in an elevator with either one.

Adams and PZ are both into lofty and snarky - that’s their schtick.

True enough, DoF- PZ can be quite repellent, and I’ve given up reading him regularly.  The difference between them, though, is that PZ knows a lot of interesting stuff, and has a knack for explaining it understandably and entertainingly to non-experts. 

Whether Dilbert is funny or not is a matter of taste.  And after going back and reading some of Adams’ musings at his blog, I suspect that he’s either just trying to be “provocative” or “funny”. But I personally don’t find him funny, informative, or logical, while PZ is, much of the time.

So if I had to choose which one to get stuck in an elevator with, it would be PZ hands down.  If I’m going to be snarked down, I’d rather it come from someone I can learn something from.

(zilch) PZ can be quite repellent, and I’ve given up reading him regularly.

I stopped reading him completely. The “appeaser blogosphere war” was the last straw… Adams and Dilbert I don’t care for.

Consi’s assessment is likely to be right on the money, so to speak, and all the more reason not to feed the troll.

The “appeaser blogosphere war” was the last straw…

Yep.  Being an atheist is obviously no guarantee against being dogmatic and divisive, something we atheists would do well to ponder…

Consi’s assessment is likely to be right on the money, so to speak, and all the more reason not to feed the troll.

Yes, “muddled” is a good word for Adams’ musings.  Btw, elwed- where’d you get your tag?  I like it, and my brother, who is a lot smarter than I, made me dictate it over the phone to him.

And that’s why God created marijuana.  So we could make that all important connection between the moment of creation and my ability to pick up a pencil.

Woooooowwwwwwww man!

Les: Clearly it takes a special sort of intellect to cover such huge leaps in logic in a single bound like that.

Maybe we’re beyond schtick, and are in the presence of a previously unknown super power?

zilch: I take the practical approach – that something is fascist if it unambiguously performs tasks that require fascism. Writing Mein Kampf required fascism. The Big Bang wrote Mein Kampf. Therefore, the Big Bang is a Nazi, and you and I are created by that same Nazi. Therefore, we are created by an Nazi entity.

Sounds good to me, though I think this is closer to true:

I take the practical approach – that something is stupid if it unambiguously performs tasks that require stupidity. Claiming the Big Bang is responsible for everything is stupid. Scott Adams claims the Big Bang is responsible for everything. Therefore, Scott Adams is stupid, and you and I are left off pretty much where we were before, except that we know about one more ninnyhammer.

PZ can be quite repellent, and I’ve given up reading him regularly.

I’ve also stopped reading him.  It is a shame, as the loss is mine I’m sure.  PZ has so much to offer.  It’s just buried to deep beneath the vitriol.

Zilch, I found the first two lines of the signature in some online collection of witty stuff. The third line suggested itself to me

By the way, I kept meaning to blog about the “appeaser wars”, but then I figured it wasn’t worth getting any more annoyed than I already was. I just about said what I wanted to say over at DOF’s blog, anyway.

It’s like my father always said (referring to how Adams is good at comedy writing, but obviously not philosophizing), “If there’s one thing teachers are good at, it is teaching.”

Adams needs to stick to what he does best.

I honestly hope he was just yanking chains because it’s difficult to imagine he’s buying into such nonsense.

I like dilbert for it’s cynical nature
The idea of events being pre-decided has the problem of the heisenburg uncertainty principle, that the more is know about momentum the less is known about position, there is always some unknown aspect. The uncertainty principle affects the position of electrons in atoms/molecules/ions an hence affects their shape, so when these things collide the surfaces may be different shapes on two different attempts where conditions were identical, this could have altered distribution of stuff and caused some of the asymetries we see in the universe - the universe is not the smooth sphere with density dependant only on radius and spread thinly - if the universe was completely symetrical, bodies of matter wouldn’t form because gravity would be acting cancelling out in all directions other than the centre.

The uncertainty principle is primarily a measurement consequence that you give something movement energy when you try to measure it’s speed by shining light / electrons on it. However what I couldn’t have predicted is that it also seems to be a law of existence - it means it’s impossible to observe something to be completely still, it has to have momentum, and this agrees with particle in a box theory saying that the 0th harmonic has 0 amplitude so nothing exists at 0 energy, in addition the wave-particle duality suggests that everything has both particle and wave properties and is between the two - if something was 100% particle and you took a snapshot of it in time it would have certain position but you would know nothing of how fast it was moving, whereas 100% wave is the reverse - you can’t describe the central point of an infinitely long wave yet you can say exactly where it is - things have to be somewhere between the two to obey uncertainty, otherwise you violate the rule, this is proven by the studies on the electron which is the most intermediate thing of all. Light also has particle properties. Larger physical objects are more particle like but still has a wavelength, so theoretically I could diffract you by passing you through a slit of similar width to your wavelength - unfortunately that wavelength is going to incredibly small, probably many times smaller than an atom, so sterics may make squeezing through that gap difficult.

Big bang theory has the problem that the matter at the start would have been many times the density needed to form a black hole - it shouldn’t have exploded, just form a black hole of finite size. However what is possible is that just outside the black hole, to increase entropy (and this is observed), the nothing just outside the event horizon defining the boundry of the black hole, splits into particles and antiparticles, sending antiparticles into the black hole to cancel out some matter whilst sending out particles into space, thus the big bang may have been less of a bang and more of a constant streem.

Wow, the intro for the Dilbert cartoon show is now funnier with that cracked statement putting it in perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnU-LahHn7A

I wonder if he is just putting up some Aunt Sally’s, or just musing out loud.  I am a Dilbert Fan (Dilbert is like The Office- non office workers say “That can’t happen- they would be Brent would be fired, and us paper pushers think if only you knew...), but I have wondered why SA diverges into badly argued philosophy.  However I then found this.

Atheists in Jail
Have you ever wondered what percentage of prison inmates are atheists? It must be a lot, given that non-believers have no moral center and spend most of their days robbing, and killing, and sodomizing farm animals. That’s what you do when you have no morality.

According to Adherents.com, 16% of the world’s 6.25 billion people are non-religious. That includes atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists. That’s just over 1 billion godless (and Budahless) infidels.

According to http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf, there are 8.75 million people in jail in the entire world. And that includes people who haven’t been convicted. Hmm. That seems too low by about, um, a billion infidels that should be behind bars.

But let’s add to the people in jail the ones who have already served their time, and the ones who simply haven’t yet been caught. Excuse me while I take off my pants and yank that number out of my ass.

Okay, got it.

That’s a total of 25 million evil-doers in the world.

Wait, I feel another number in my ass. I think it’s the percentage of people in jail who ARE religious. It’s at least two-thirds, wouldn’t you agree? So that means that the other one-third of the 25 million evil-doers is non-religious. That’s a bit over 8 million non-religious people doing evil, worldwide.

In other words, only 8 million of the 1 BILLION non-believers who damned well SHOULD be in prison are actually there. There is only one conclusion that I can draw from this rigorous scientific analysis: Atheists are lazy.

As a non-believer[my emphasis], I can tell you that the only reason I don’t kill people is the difficulty in disposing the bodies. First you have to clean up the blood. Then you have to drag the victim to a carpet and roll him up. Then you have to drag it to the car late at night. Then you have to drive the body and the carpet to the mountains and bury it. Then you have to buy a new carpet. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. And that assumes you already HAVE a shovel.

I think I speak for all non-believers when I say that the only reason we limit our sex to human beings is that animals run too fast. Have you ever tried to tap a caribou? I don’t care how hot they are with their little furry behinds – it’s not worth all of the running. That’s why most one-legged women are married to atheists.

I could teach you things like this all day, but frankly I feel a nap coming on.

See he is an athiest. Therefore lazy. So he gets half formed thoughts in his head and doesn’t have the energy to finish them before posting.

I was going to write about the stereotype of lazy athiests...but I can’t be bothered.

Excuse me while I take off my pants and yank that number out of my ass

that’s going to be difficult to erase from my mind

Les:I honestly hope he was just yanking chains because it’s difficult to imagine he’s buying into such nonsense.

I’m not sure which one it was, either the Dilbert Principle or the Dilbert Future, but Adams in all seriousness explains some of his other beliefs, such as his perspective on luck, wish fulfillment through affirmations and some interesting alternate theories on time/space and gravity.  What bothers me about the whole thing was that he conveyed a sense that he isn’t an authority on the issues and he didn’t want to take the time to do actual research on the issues, just make up crazy theories and then say they had as much validity as actual scientific theories. 

I’m probably a bit off since it’s been years since I read the book (heck, I don’t even remember which one it was), but I wouldn’t be surprised if Scott Adams came out tomorrow and announced he was a Born Again Christian or something else equally absurd.

elwed- I’ve been racking my brains for a complementary fourth line to your signature, about “politics”, but the best I can come up with is:
“Politics is answers to questions that have no answers”

Zilch, I know it wasn’t a competition but I like words.

Politics is never to answer the question. 

zilch: elwed- I’ve been racking my brains for a complementary fourth line to your signature, about “politics”, but the best I can come up with is:

Politics is answers to questions that weren’t asked

I like LJ’s answer best, but what was the question again?

“Politics is avoiding the answers while sounding patriotic”

I like both LJ’s and dc’s answers, which are accurate in different ways.  What I originally thought up was:
“Politics is answers to questions that never have answers, but must nevertheless be answered.”