The Universe is a lot smaller and duller than you think

On the Skepticality forum comes the news that Scott Adams’s book God’s Debris is available for free download. Sample quote:

“Every generation of humans believed it has all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved any moment. And they believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?”

The book aspires to be fiction with a message. It’s a bit like a philosophical version of the Da Vinci Code only not as good.

I suppose it’s feasible if you ignore history of science, philosophy, classics, archaeology, theology, new age beliefs… – in fact any genre that connects to the past. Adams seems to be unaware of these and seems to be arguing that modernity is ignorant of the sum of human experience in the past. Either that or he doesn’t understand it. It’s a shame he doesn’t understand modern science or philosophy either. For instance his wise man argues that “Quantum Leap” is a phrase that originated to describe the spontaneous generation of matter stating “You’ve probably heard the term but didn’t know its origin.” Well Adams certainly doesn’t.

Arguably none of this matters because, hey it’s a novel. The misinformation is purely ironic. Which is fine. It’s not funny though.