Scott Adams vs. a "self-important, humorless, autofellating, ass hat"

I love discovering flame wars like this online. Great entertainment value. On the one side, you have Scott Adams (you know - Dilbert) and on the other a biologist named PZ Myers. Scott Adams keeps a blog and, ever so often, uses it as a forum for philosophical speculation - but all in good humor. Its a good read when your taking a 5 minute break from work. Anyway, along comes PZ Myers, a in-your-face-credentials biologists who, apparently, can't stand someone even speculating about an intelligent designer. Well, I guess this post was too much for Myers:

I wonder how you can tell if an alien is “intelligent life.” Is there a test that fits all situations? For example, suppose we found a blob on Mars that moved under its own power and wasn’t a carbon-based life form. How could we tell if it was intelligent?
...
Suppose the blob on Mars beat you at chess. That would tell you that the blob can “compute,” but it wouldn’t tell you if the blob was intelligent “life.” A computer can beat you at chess if it’s so programmed, and no one thinks your computer is intelligent life.

What if the blob authored a book?

Don’t answer too quickly because it’s a trick question. Remember, a trillion monkeys with typewriters can write a book if you wait long enough. So let’s up the ante and say that the blob on Mars writes lots of different books. ...

It’s a trick question because atheists believe that the Big Bang did all of those things and more. The Big Bang caused the sequence of events that culminated in the Bible, the Koran, and most important – Dilbert comics. If the blob on Mars created literature, we would surely consider it intelligent.


So Myers can't take it, and has to be real ass about it:

We went round and round on this well over a year ago. Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, wrote a shallow and ignorant argument that sort of shilly-shallied over a pro-creationist argument; I pointed out how stupid his reasoning was. The response was insane; criticize Adams, and his horde of Dilbert fans will descend on you like a cloud of pea-brained locusts. ... Basically, Adams just outed himself as a feeble hack making tepid arguments that only a creationist could believe.


Oh my! Calm down dude - its OK to speculate and throw ideas out there. And its not like he's forcing his ideas down anyone's throat. Or you can go ahead and brow-beat him next time he posts anything you find objectionable. This would be more entertainment value for me. And the more invectives the better! Oh, and thanks for turning my 5 minute break into a 20 minute break.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Lol.... Ass Hat for sure.

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