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Evolutionary Scientists Test-Drive Spore, Gripe
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.'"
War veterans said that standing near an exploding grenade in Call of Duty was not at all the same as the real thing.
Actually, having RTFA, I stand corrected.
I never paid much attention to they hype and went mostly by the criterion that I'd even buy Pee if it's Will Wright's anyway. Also, that it's just a game anyway.
According to TFA, though, it sounds like EA's bulshitters... err... marketers have been shooting their mouth all over the place about how the game is an accurate representation of evolution, and how there's interest from colleges to use it to teach science. And while the former borders on fraud, the latter makes me cringe. As others have said, it's really an ID game, with some evolution language thrown in. The very idea of selling that as accurate science is ridiculous enough, but hyping it as a way to _teach_ evolution... is irresponsible at best.
*Sigh* It's times like these that I see Bill Hicks's point about marketing...
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In the spirit of fairness, I had a copy of Spore sent to Michael Behe, an intelligent design advocate based at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After playing Spore, he concluded that it "has nothing to do with real science or real evolution--neither Darwinian nor intelligent design."
Well, the way I understand the point, though, it's not that the game _should_ be an accurate represetation of unguided evolution. It's that EA has marketed it as an accurate representation of evolution, and as a way to teach evolution. Clearly that claim doesn't match the game's content.
And normally I'd have said the said you did. But if they made some very clear claims about the game, I think it's fair to judge it by those claims.
I mean, for example, if UT claimed to be (among other things) an accurate flight simulator, it would be entirely fair to expect it to match that claim. After all, that's what their own marketers are telling you to use as your buying criterion.
Way I can tell, that's what they do in TFA. They didn't just come out of nowhere with the idea that a game must be like evolution. (Which would be a silly expectation indeed.) But once EA claimed that it _is_ an accurate representation of evolution, and good enough to be used in colleges, well, the game is on. Let's see how true that statement is.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Please at least try to get informed about who you are insulting. Not everyone who believes in a higher power (and by extension, that life has value) believes the universe is 6k years old. But even disregarding that, your insult didn't make sense. A game marketed about evolution is popular with people in KS, presumably because you think everyone in KS is a backwards redneck who denies evolution?
I think it would help if you read this