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.'"
Any publicity is good publicity (Score:4, Interesting)
That must be Will Wright's philosophy if he goes around saying stuff like this (from TFA):
Last month in an hour-long show on the National Geographic channel, the game's creator, Will Wright, spoke with biologists about "the breakthrough science that's revealing the secret genetic machinery that shapes all life in the game Spore."
And the author's writing style just hurts. Pretentious twit. And he keeps trying so hard to set up a false dichotomy between scientific and religious-minded players. Give it a rest. Stop trying to stir up controversy where there isn't any.
And "The Gonzo Scientist?" Hunter S. Thompson would shoot himself if he saw that. Oh wait...
New I.D. requirement? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:dude, it's a friggen game (Score:5, Interesting)
what do you expect?
Obviously what they expected was better evolutionary biology principles. Was that an unreasonable expectation? Well, yeah, and I bet they feel stupid for expecting that now, but hindsight is 20-20.
Speaking as someone who spent three years working in the field of evolutionary biology (from the standpoint of working on same with evolutionary algorithms), I can tell you that the reality of that subject, whilst scientifically fascinating, is about as entertaining as watching paint dry.
You wouldn't want a game to follow scientifically realistic principles. For one thing doing so would involve including the possibility that it would go off on a tangent and fail. You don't want that, not in a game anyway, which means you have to add a lot of constraints, which in turn means a truly scientific approach is pretty much impossible.
That said, I'm sure there is a lot that can be taken from the real science. Just don't ask a scientist to do the extraction, instead, ask an experienced game designer, someone who knows what a game would need.
Not too surprising. (Score:5, Interesting)
Spore is Lamarkian evolution with hit points.
Seriously, inheritance of acquired characteristics, "the complexifying force", "the adaptive force", it's all there. Compare this to Will Wright's much earlier Simlife, which is substantially oversimplified, for the sake of gameplay on the computers of 1992; but is actually a Darwinian evolution simulator game. Now, that said, that isn't an issue. Spore isn't required to be anything in particular. Some games rely on realism. Spore doesn't. Some rely on verisimilitude, Spore doesn't really do that either. Not a problem. Civilization II is a great game; but anybody who thinks that it is a civics lesson is mistaken. Nothing wrong with that. I just hope that the vague notion that "Spore is about evolution" doesn't give rise to yet more peculiar misunderstandings of the subject.
Incidentally, and maybe this just makes me a bad person; but why does the Spore space stage have no concept of genocide? It keeps track of, and awards medals and stuff for, all kinds of weird things(OMG! painted 5 planets!). Why does neither the game, nor the AI races, react appropriately when I take my ship to their homeworld and suck up all its atmosphere, turning the ancestral home of their race into a barren rock, coated with bones and ashes? Shouldn't that deserve a message less generic than "You hurt our planet."?
Losing perspective here? (Score:5, Interesting)
My impression is that it's a freaking videogame and doesn't attempt to teach anything other than how to use sandbox editors to make spaceships and stuff. I'm surprised at all this discussion over what is merely a collection of clay editors.
Re:Spore probably was meant to be more (Score:2, Interesting)
But, eh, it's not as if many people in the Slashdot crowd were likely to buy the game in the first place, due to its being "defective by design".
It's not dangerous; it's too stupid to be. (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife's lab - she's an evolutionary biologist, in a sense - gathered around Spore last week, and we all had a good laugh. Out of something like three master's students, three Ph.D. candidates, three Ph.D.s, and me, lowly MFA that I am, nobody could think of a single thing it did right in terms of actual evolution ... but, at the same time, it's so thoroughly, ludicrously wacko (all herbivores want to be friends with other species? Anyone who's ever seen a hippo in the wild wouldn't agree with that... ) that we agreed that it couldn't possibly help the ID folks, either. I mean ... would *they* want people to think that God sends piles of bones down to induce change in how well species dance?
It's a Big Bucket of Fail on pretty much every level, no matter what direction you're coming from.
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ID (Score:4, Interesting)
Great! Free copies of Spore for everyone with a wacky view on how species came about! Whooo-hooo! That's what free speech is all about! I personally believe that species come about by mutating in nuclear waste instead of natural selection; I'm eagerly awaiting my copy! Though I might not install it with the DRM attached...
Quit trying to karma whore by turning this into a free speech issue. That trick isn't working for the creationists and it's not going to work for you. Quite simply, Behe doesn't deserve a "fair and balanced" treatment because his views, under scrutiny, are not science and should not be treated as if they are a viable alternative view.
Re:If you're going to make an insult... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not acknowledging the existence of a higher power invalidates a number of arguments that life has value. That's not at all the same as depriving life of value.
If life has value, the invalidation of a large class of arguments to that effect only means that this fact must be demonstrated differently. On the other hand, if life has NO value, then contrary arguments that it HAS value are necessarily disprovable in some way. However, not all disproofs of such counter arguments are necessarily valid, they are just correct. A third possibility is that existence of value in life cannot be proved or disproved within the terms of discourse. In that case one can consistently take it as axiomatic one way or the other.
That's where things get interesting. Different moralities could be constructed around either alternative. For those who take the position that life has value, this value is, in a sense, rooted in the arguments to that effect. Refuting the arguments thus really does deprive life of its value.
On the other hand, for those who take it for granted that life has no value, the success of a counter argument to their views entails the prospect of their magnificently bleak psychological landscape being cluttered with fluffy white bunny and pink valentine hearts.
Re:Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
I didn't bother to RTFA and I haven't played the game, so I'm well prepared to be corrected here, but I doubt this game is in any way deliberately promoting intelligent design mumbo jumbo. From a gaming perspective, correct and proper evolution would be mind numbingly boring. I mean you can wait around for evolution to turn your creature into a fucking rabbit if you want, I'd much prefer to play "God" and design one that eats rabbits. On the marketing side, no one in their right mind would deliberately link it to intelligent design, even if that's what the game really is. The batshit crazy intelligent design gaming demographic just isn't big enough to compensate for that kind of bad publicity.