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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.'"
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.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
First off, the pithy one liner:
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."?
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.
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.
Agenda or not, it was marketed as a game about evolution, but plays like a game about Intelligent Design. I think the comparison is very apt.
... and then they built the supercollider.