Spore and the debate on evolution

Limos

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Woe Is You post=9.70435.693376 said:
Three words: evolution is a lie.

Also, monkeys don't live several million years. Ergo, evolution is a lie.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey... I saw that quoted on a website. If you really believed that I would have to kill you or something. Then I'd have to say something ironic or witty right before I finished you off. like

"Survival of the fittest ************."

Or.

"Where is your God now? Mwa ha ha ha!!"
 

crepesack

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May 20, 2008
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evolution has pretty much been proven. i just cant stand the idiots who think the earth is 5000 years old however i have trouble arguing against intelligent design you cant scientifically disprove or prove god. then again intelligent design is probably a ploy for churchies to keep "smart" followers with em. after all if you cant beat em join em but mess up the rules so it looks like they join you.
 

mrnelsby

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Yeah, not from the UK. I was born in Puerto Rico... the concept of "Taking the piss" was limited to urination...

Edit: yeah, recently I've been seeing Gordon Ramsey using it all the time, but I wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to be used properly.

Edit2: Oh, and I got Spore this afternoon in Boston. Wasn't supposed to be out till Tuesday, but Best Buy had it on display. It's hella fun, though I have to say that it definitely avoids really addressing who the player is (except maybe in the achievements which have a "God" reference or two to the player).
 

Kayevcee

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Does anyone mind if I take offense at folk who seem to think the phrase 'religious types' is interchangeable with 'Young Earth Creationist'? I went to Catholic school until I was 17, and there was never any debate. The creation story was how the ancient Israelites explained the way the world around them formed, and we all had a right old laugh while watching a cartoon about it in R.E. class. It was taken no more seriously than Samson taking down 1000 Palestines with the assbone of an ass. If they were wearing armour it would have broken after the first couple of dozen. Anyway, I'd rather not be tarred with the same brush applied to fundamentalist nutbags (who you almost never hear from in the UK- it seems to be more of an American thing) who think God put dinosaur bones in the ground to mess with our heads. They seem to have Him confused with Loki.

Spore looks like fun, though. It reminds me of Eco, a fairly awful early polygon-based game for the Amiga 500 Back In The Day. You got assigned a random genome with only eight letters and usually popped out as some kind of insect, then you had to scrabble (very slowly- A500s and wireframe insects do not mix) around looking for the flashing peg that means food then find something else that looks like you and crash into it which apparently passes for courtship when you're a beetle composed of 6 triangles and some lines. After each mating you could unlock another gene until you could fart about with your entire genome to your heart's content. I made it as far as 'stick figure dog' once. Then I got run over by a jogger and killed. It may have been a caveman. There were definitely no spaceships.

-Nick
 
Jan 14, 2008
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evolution is defined as "slow change"
therefore evolution does exist
but it is debatable that Charles Darwin's theory of sential evolution is real
if the game can support both sides of the argument
that should be a good thing
 

Souplex

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Jul 29, 2008
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Spore does promote the idea of natural selection in a sense, just not on easy mode. (The casual gamer difficulty.) If you evolve your creature well your creature succeeds, if you evolve it poorly nature selects it to die.
 

Vigormortis

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I haven't seen anything come out of any major news organization or other such groups that talk of the "controversy" behind the themes in Spore, but it wouldn't surprise me if something popped up in the not too distant future.

internutt post=9.70435.702276 said:
I'm Christian and I do not personally believe evolution. I think humanity has always been here, we have not changed much over the centuries, we have simply changed technologically. I do however believe in natural selection. Creatures die out and change to adapt to different areas.
Doesn't the very notion that you believe in natural selection contradict your ideal that evolution is untrue? Evolution is nothing more than natural selection and adaptation on a very, very long time scale and involves much more drastic genetic changes.

Woe Is You post=9.70435.693376 said:
Three words: evolution is a lie.

Also, monkeys don't live several million years. Ergo, evolution is a lie.
Well see, as others have said, we evolved from apes, or should I say ape-like mammals. These evolved from even earlier primate-like creatures who, in turn, evolved from even simpler tree-fairing mammals. These came from simpler earth-bound mammals who only thrived because of the mass extinction events that resulted in over 75% of life on this planet dying off. This cleared the way for mammals to become the dominant species shortly after the Cretaceous period leading into the Tertiary or specifically the Paleocene period. The evidence supporting evolution is everywhere, just because some are unwilling to acknowledge it doesn't change the fact that it's there.

P.S. "Evolution is a lie" is 4 words.
P.P.S. as we all know, the cake is a lie, not evolution.
 

mackemsniper

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Woe Is You post=9.70435.693376 said:
Three words: evolution is a lie.

Also, monkeys don't live several million years. Ergo, evolution is a lie.
I really hope that was sarcasm.
 

mackemsniper

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zirnitra post=9.70435.702312 said:
Ixus Illwrath post=9.70435.702300 said:
internutt post=9.70435.702276 said:
I'm Christian and I do not personally believe evolution. I think humanity has always been here, we have not changed much over the centuries, we have simply changed technologically. I do however believe in natural selection. Creatures die out and change to adapt to different areas.

Animals like dogs started out as tamed wolves before adapting to the specific tasks that humans required of them.
Oh come on, what the fuck. Did we just get dropped off by a goddamn space ship after the dinos were long gone? You and your band of creationists should be banned from teaching anyone anything outright and forever.
come on now that's not fair, people should be allowed to belive whatever they wish no matter how deluded, wishful and sometimes just ignorant they seem when faced with an overwhelming amount of evidence against their beliefs. people being taught should be given all sides of the argument.

PS creationist's do not believe that dinosaurs ever were.
No, you're quite wrong. This brand of 'mild' creationism is the backbone from which all the other, more fundamentalist creationists sprout. People should not be able to believe in what they want; especially if their kind of unscientific, uncritical, unreasoning minds engender the kind of sectarian hate and religious bigotry that we see all over the world. Without their secular 'backbone', more fundamental and crazier creationists could not support themselves.

Children should be taught the truth, and the best explanation for the universe right now includes evolution. Would it be moral for us to teach the next generation 1) what we innocently believe to be the truth, including the best physical evidence available to us at present, or 2) watered-down lies concerning stone-age Middle-Eastern fairies?

People do not have the right to believe in anything they want - especially when it leads to the destruction of so many people and poisons the minds of innocent children.
 

mackemsniper

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Ixus Illwrath post=9.70435.703804 said:
If this game had any respect for real evolution you wouldn't be able to sell back all your body parts and switch from being veggies/meat at a whim.

Strangely enough, don't the Civ games seem to support a creationism standpoint? I always get disappointed in myself trying to make a badass civ and having to pick a religion at some point :(

Not to mention you always start out at 4000BC. That says a whole lot in itself.
4000BC is approximately when the first cities appeared in the Middle-East and India.
 

Ixus Illwrath

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mackemsniper post=9.70435.707892 said:
Ixus Illwrath post=9.70435.703804 said:
If this game had any respect for real evolution you wouldn't be able to sell back all your body parts and switch from being veggies/meat at a whim.

Strangely enough, don't the Civ games seem to support a creationism standpoint? I always get disappointed in myself trying to make a badass civ and having to pick a religion at some point :(

Not to mention you always start out at 4000BC. That says a whole lot in itself.
4000BC is approximately when the first cities appeared in the Middle-East and India.
I was being more facetious, I was more pointing out how that game doesn't in any real way conflict with a creationist viewpoint. Doesn't make it a bad game, but it's food for thought. I don't remember hearing about militant anyone complaining about how something wasn't properly represented in that game.
 

Cheesus333

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Ixus Illwrath post=9.70435.706572 said:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/evolutionists_flock_to_darwin

These are the guys in question.
I find it hilarious that, being evolutionists (and therefore most likely atheists) one woman said "I brought my baby to touch the wall to purify her makeup of undesirable inherited traits."
This made me laugh. Did Jesus not cure people by touch (supposedly)? The best part is that it's one part ridiculous logic and half nerd-speak.
 

mrnelsby

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Actually, I also got a bit frustrated with the Civ level... did manage to just buy out the last civilization with money after I couldn't convert them to save my life...

I started the space stage before going to bed last night. Initial impressions are that it is very similar to Star Control II, which is one of my all-time favorite games. I really hope it continues like that, because it is an excellent game.

Irony of Ironies... guess what I (the rabid atheist) played my civilization out as? Yup, you guessed it, a theocracy! I was pounding other cities with my religious propaganda and forcing them to believe what I believe!! hehe Personally, I like to think that my little abominations (man I'm horrible at the creature creator) were running around my little world demolishing those other cities because they refused to believe in creationism! ;)
 

Cheesus333

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mackemsniper post=9.70435.707882 said:
zirnitra post=9.70435.702312 said:
Ixus Illwrath post=9.70435.702300 said:
internutt post=9.70435.702276 said:
I'm Christian and I do not personally believe evolution. I think humanity has always been here, we have not changed much over the centuries, we have simply changed technologically. I do however believe in natural selection. Creatures die out and change to adapt to different areas.

Animals like dogs started out as tamed wolves before adapting to the specific tasks that humans required of them.


Oh come on, what the fuck. Did we just get dropped off by a goddamn space ship after the dinos were long gone? You and your band of creationists should be banned from teaching anyone anything outright and forever.
come on now that's not fair, people should be allowed to belive whatever they wish no matter how deluded, wishful and sometimes just ignorant they seem when faced with an overwhelming amount of evidence against their beliefs. people being taught should be given all sides of the argument.

PS creationist's do not believe that dinosaurs ever were.
No, you're quite wrong. This brand of 'mild' creationism is the backbone from which all the other, more fundamentalist creationists sprout. People should not be able to believe in what they want; especially if their kind of unscientific, uncritical, unreasoning minds engender the kind of sectarian hate and religious bigotry that we see all over the world. Without their secular 'backbone', more fundamental and crazier creationists could not support themselves.

Children should be taught the truth, and the best explanation for the universe right now includes evolution. Would it be moral for us to teach the next generation 1) what we innocently believe to be the truth, including the best physical evidence available to us at present, or 2) watered-down lies concerning stone-age Middle-Eastern fairies?

People do not have the right to believe in anything they want - especially when it leads to the destruction of so many people and poisons the minds of innocent children.
Sorry for the double post.

As callous and unfair as mackemsniper's argument is, I'm afraid he makes a valid point. Religions invariably lead to war (unless you are a Buddhist or a Hindu, who seem to be the most neutral partes in any case) and if religion is taught then it will spread. Despite my apprently incorrect beliefs that people can choose what to believe (see the irony) he makes a swaying point.