Evolutionary Scientists Test-Drive Spore, Gripe 252
ahab_2001 writes "The computer game Spore has been marketed partly as an experience that makes evolutionary biology come alive in a game setting. But does that claim hold water? To find out, John Bohannon, a correspondent for Science Magazine (writing as 'The Gonzo Scientist'), sat four card-carrying scientists, ranging from evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge to JPL astrophysicist Miles Smith, down in front of a terminal to play the game. The upshot, says Bohannon: Spore flunks basic science, getting 'most of biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong.'"
Reminds me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of some decade ago or so, when someone warned that the stone age wasn't like in The Flintstones. I never would have guessed ;)
Evolution or Creation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't spore teach much much more about the idea of creationism (under the form of 'guided evolution') than it does about true evolution?
If you want to teach about evolution, make an RTS where everyone starts out with the same units, but depending on how you use them (and which units come back alive) they change over time. Still guided evolution I guess, since you could put your units in situations that would produce traits that you desire, but at least a few steps up the ladder of scientific validity.
Well, yea - its way off (Score:5, Insightful)
dude, it's a friggen game (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evolution or Creation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Um, no duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I think the main point is that "Evolution" in spore is not driven by Natural Selection at all, but rather by the whims of the user, or at least changes are made in way that the user perceives will help them be successful in the game.
If anything, Spore gets right (in a very broad definition of the term) the different possible eras of evolution. Cell to pack to tribe to city to space-faring civiliation. And that only parallels advanced intelligent civilizations.
Some species have evolved so well to fit a niche (like Honeybees) that they haven't evolved that much.
If anything, I would say that Spore is part of an experience that makes "Intelligent Design" come alive in a game setting! After all, it's the user who's "designing" the creature! ;)
I wonder how that would be for marketingspeak!
Re:dude, it's a friggen game (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it was an unreasonable expectation. I don't even know how one can make a game about natural selection / evolution. Once you put interactivity into it, either by changing the environment or changing the creature, it plays right into the hands of the principles of ID.
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:3, Insightful)
It feels as you're playing it that it *wants* you to assume intelligent design. You're "designing" it, aren't you? And your designs are utterly unscientific and impractical, though terribly cute. And there's no explanation for why this is anywhere. Summed, it really is very much like any modern religious creation theory.
Re:Really? (Score:1, Insightful)
God forbid those scientists should get a hold of Super Mario Brothers.
That comment would be appropriate if Nintendo's marketers were shooting their mouth off claiming that Super Mario Brothers was an actual plumbing simulator that was being used in plumber courses to teach the students the glorious life of a plumber.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone who believes in a higher power (and by extension, that life has value)
Huh?
Why does NOT having a higher power deprive life of value?
And if life has no value intrinsically, then why does a higher power "give" it any value at all?
Re:Um, no duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199 [vgcats.com]
Where are the ads? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only Spore ads I saw were on TV and I don't remember them saying anything about its accuracy or educational value.
So where exactly are the marketing materials that claim Spore is accurate and educational? If they exist, then yes, shame on EA.
If they don't, then shame on whoever is trying to pick a fight.
Disappointing, over-hyped (Score:3, Insightful)
Spore probably was meant to be more (Score:5, Insightful)
I get the feeling that Spore originally was meant to be more but Maxis has always had trouble delivering. SimCity of course were amazing games. For their time. It is the reason the francise died. Because as it aged, the graphics improved but the quality of the simulation didn't and we as players became aware that more was needed. More paths, more options, more choice. Instead SimCity and the likes have always had a rather narrow path to victory and if veered of that path, the game model couldn't cope.
Spore is perhaps the greatest failure. It seems originally to have been a game about evolution or at least to use evolution.
There have been games in this nature before, so it can be done. I remember an ancient game that used clay-motion animation for its creatures that allowed you to breed creatures and cull them to get the ones best suited to their enviroment.
But there is NOTHING of that in this game. As the article mentions, antlers on your back help you charge skill. You charge backwards?
There is just one TINY hint at the slightest possibilty of evolution, fruits. If you are small, you can only reach fallen fruit, if you are tall, you can get the highest fruits. There is no difference in the fruits but it is the one and only time the build of your creature seems to matter.
The rest of the time, it just don't matter. You can't even make a monster eater with a dozen mouths that devours everything in its path, or a super defensive creature because multiple items don't stack their bonusses.
The game just completly failed to live up to its early promises. I get the feeling Will Wright is following in Molyneux's footsteps. Once a person who made innovative and fun game but one who increasingly just can't deliver on his promises.
To bad because a game that uses evolution to judge your creationism could be a lot of fun.
Re:Not too surprising. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're probably in disbelief that you managed to guess the code to the atmospheric shield.
I have the same combination on my luggage!
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you serious?
You guys have taken a game ... thats it, nothing more than a game, that no one in their right mind would consider to be based on anything scientific or religous and turned it into an evolution versus intelligent design thing?
For fucks sake, not everything is about advancing some agenda that you don't agree with. Put your damn tin foil hats back on and crawl back into your fucked up world of conspiracies instead of talking to those of us in the normal world.
Its just a damn game, nothing more.
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:3, Insightful)
You are overgeneralizing. It isn't just a game, it is a game about evolution thus the arguement of evolution vs ID.
Re:Evolution or Creation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally, someone who can see that it is CLEARLY CREATIONISM.
Everything Will Wright is creationism, that is the idea. God games, and you get to be god. Simcity 1/2/3/4, Simearth, The Sims, now Spore. You can be an evil god (In sims, put someone in a room, remove the door, they die eventually. Better yet, in the kitchen and catch it on fire.) or be a good god (yawn). But it is all creationism. That this game is too really isn't a revelation. You are just starting a few million years earlier.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:4, Insightful)
The statement DOES imply "If life has no value, then it's likely there is no god", but it says nothing about what might be true if there is no god.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand. If god exists, and cares about puny mortals, why does that give them value?
Why does god and his cares have intrinsic value any more than life itself?
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is, it's been /marketed/ as sketching evolutionary law, which is not the case.
This is not a case of bad game design (although it might be) but a case of misleading marketing.
Re:Um, no duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, and you don't understand evolution, either, because evolution has nothing to do with a hierarchy of progress. It's ridiculous to claim that we are "more evolved than honeybees"; it shows that you don't understand evolution.
Evolution has no stages like "tribe" or "civilization". These are parts of human creation. Perhaps intelligent life forms may undergo similar stages. Perhaps they'll form differently based upon their behavioral characteristics. Either way, though, evolution has nothing to do with advancement or progress.
Re:ID (Score:4, Insightful)
In seriousness, however, the reason it's not ID to Behe is probably because Jesus Christ himself isn't directly each and every creature in Spore.
In true seriousness, why would sending something to Behe have to do with "fair"? That implies Behe's side deserves fair representation. In my books, cranks do not deserve representation until they have actual science to back their claims up.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:4, Insightful)
#1, I've lived in Kansas and know many people there. 90% of the plains area are backwards rednecks who deny evolution. I had to work for years to overcome prejudices I learned growing up there... and I'm embarassed every time it slips through. I thank my wife for getting me the hell out of that state before the damage was even more perminant. A lot of them are nice people (if you're straight, white, and faithful), however, they are backwards rednecks who deny evolution.
#2, Yes, everyone knows that not every religious person belives in young earth... however nearly half do acording to studys. Just because these religions have split to the point where commenting on their stupidy is akin to playing whack-a-mole doesn't change the fact that you are defined by the company kept by the majority of a group. If you don't want called stupid for being part of the group don't bitch at the people calling you stupid, bitch at the people making you look stupid.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if you believe that God himself actually wanted the Crusades to happen, I could understand that comment.
What God's followers do in his name is not the same as what it is he wants done by his followers.
Reading the Bible helps clear a lot of these misunderstandings up.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying its the "ultimate authority on morals" is not enough to explain why they should care about what he thinks. Why should they accept, rather than reject morals?
Its not enough to have a god that cares about life so that life would have value. You have to accept that god's values as your own, to inherit the view that life has value.
So why not skip the god part, and accept the view life has value without all the god mumbo jumbo?
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to school you on "science" and "science fiction", because you've made an error in your assessment, a fairly major one.
There's a difference in literary terms between "hard science fiction" and "soft science fiction". Star Trek falls under the category of "hard science fiction", as does almost everything by Isaac Asimov. Hard science fiction is science fiction that is as heavily based in science FACT as is possible. While Star Trek may be a little "softer" than Foundation, it still falls squarely in the genre of "hard science fiction" and deserves to be treated as such.
That said, "soft science fiction" is just as valuble in literary terms--its simply a slightly different genre. Soft science fiction includes authors like Phillip K. Dick (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Ubik) and Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine). Soft science fiction sacrifices scientific fact for much weightier raw speculation, and generally uses this speculation to spawn plots and plot devices. _Dune_ is an excellent example of soft science fiction in this manner.
All of THAT said, the game is neither soft nor hard science fiction, it's just intelligent design masquerading as fun (and not very well at that). The reason that it's very important to understand this is that currently a very small number of very, very loud people are actually getting laws passed in the United States (and elsewhere) which are rooted firmly in the ethic of "ID". This is horrifying to me and all free-thinking people, and must be stopped at once. Shining a very clear light on suspicions of ID prattle in video games (and elsewhere) is important to start a dialog about it.
But you're not taking part of a dialog. In your assessment of some of our arguments as "blah blah bla whine whine whine", you yourself have become the biggest whiner of all.
But thanks for the irony.