…and this is a 
Do you want to play a game?
Category: Creationism
Posted on: May 4, 2008 5:53 PM, by PZ Myers
Yeesh — I don't think this game is going to take the world by storm. It's calledCrevoScope, and it's a "text-based massively multiplayer game", which somehow is supposed to simulate the evolution-creationism debate, without actually requiring players to learn or know anything. It's got some weird mechanics which I haven't puzzled out in any detail at all, but apparently you can acquire "knowledge" by clicking on a "library" link — you don't actually learn anything, a number for your character goes up — and then you get to go "debate" someone, and somehow the various scores help determine whether you "win" or not. It doesn't make much sense to me, and I don't think I'm motivated to put any time into it.
Especially since I took a look at the level of the discussion going on. Would you believe this is an argument someone made in all seriousness to disprove evolution?
Fact 1: History and Science has proven that some native African tribes eat monkeys as a prime source of food. There is bone evidence and filmed and video prof as well. Along with the bones of monkeys are human remains. So the body that science says is prof of evolution is just bones of monkeys that some tribe eat along side there bones.
Fact 2: Evolution teaches all life on earth came from one source. The primordial soup they call it if thats true would we not have DNA of all life on earth even if its a small percentage of it.
Fact 3: Darwin was a man that gave birth to this evolution theory. Were many people in the science community say is fact. Darwin himself have written a science manuscript stating that evolution is not possible just before his death.
I'm always astounded that every time I meet a creationist and hear their argument, they always manage to sink even lower than anything I'd previously heard. That sounds like a logical impossibility, unless perhaps creationist brains are in a universal state of implosion.
Comments
The stupid combined with the bad grammar really burns.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | May 4, 2008 6:00 PM
That deathbed manuscript must be the one he dictated to Lady Hope.
Posted by: PatrickHenry | May 4, 2008 6:04 PM
These "fact"s are so poorly written that I am having trouble discerning what the writers are trying to say by them. Probably the clearest of the three is "fact" 3, which is based on an entirely false claim. More evidence that cognitive clarity is required for linguistic clarity, I guess....
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 6:05 PM
Apparently it's based on what creationists actually do, simply Google some horseshit, call it knowledge, and then try to claim that it disproves evolution.
It's the opposite of honest scholarly or scientific debate, which is good for creationism, because it can't compete where any actual knowledge exists.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 4, 2008 6:08 PM
Dawkins recently said in an interview with Bill Maher that in his deathbed, he'll have witnesses and a tape recorder that such "facts" will not pop up about him after his death. Given what we have here- that may not really help.
Posted by: Insightful Ape | May 4, 2008 6:14 PM
"...evolution is not possible just before his death."
You see, because Darwin had to die in order to unleash the forces of evolution on the world. Turn with me to the Book of Darwin, chapter eight, verse three...
Posted by: Jim Anderson | May 4, 2008 6:14 PM
So if you go into the "church" in the game, this is what happens (I'm playing the "evolution" side, btw):
You would think they would at least give you a bible verse before you "gain more knowledge of the bible". But no. For these people, all you have to do is go into a church.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 6:14 PM
I gave up on trying to follow the reasoning behind the "facts", so I just despaired at the horrible grammar.
Posted by: Tlowe | May 4, 2008 6:16 PM
I imagine word of this game would have spread (at least a little bit) through some good ol' christian outrage. Unfortunately for the developers, GTA 4's going to be soaking up all of that shit for months to come.
Posted by: Facehammer | May 4, 2008 6:18 PM
My guess is that Fact 2 is a specially crafted brain-breaker for scientific types; they get trapped by its meandering meaninglessness and concede, leaving to buy headache medicine.
Either that, or then it's some arcane language trick a non-native speaker like me can't understand. Is that disproof written in Drone or in Yammer?
Posted by: Masks of Eris | May 4, 2008 6:22 PM
Hehe, hey, this game sounds an awful lot like role playing, doesn't it? Haven't you heard that's a demonic passtime that corrodes the soul and lets the devil into your life?
Posted by: JM Inc. | May 4, 2008 6:26 PM
Looking on the bright side, these people are clearly losing the power to articulate coherent thought. Eventually, they may reach the point where they are unable to communicate or socialize at all except through a games oonsole. It reminds me of the Dilbert strip musing about Star Trek holodecks. The punchline has Dogbert saying something like "When holodecks become cheaper than dating, the human race is doomed."
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | May 4, 2008 6:28 PM
Does reading these arguments make you lose "knowledge points?"
Every now and then I think it's useful to look at what average, ordinary people who don't generally engage in debates or discussions think are "good" arguments against evolution, or for God.
For one thing, it helps you recognize where some of the errors in thinking are first made, because you're not distracted by details or something that sounds like a different, but more legitimate, argument. And for another thing, it helps you appreciative the creationists and theists who come into science blogs looking to debate. They are actually a few steps up the rung. They've taken the time to think through the situation, decided to engage in rational discussion, arranged their thoughts, studied the matter, and have probably discarded their worst errors.
In order to realize this properly, you need to see what its complete absence looks like.
When I used to hang out in IRC, as poor as some of the apologetics were in #Christiandebate, they were usually still sophisticated light years ahead of what you'd find in the praise-and-worship rooms.
Posted by: Sastra | May 4, 2008 6:37 PM
I lack the words... I mean, I just... it's...
It hurts. There really is no hope for these poor bastards, is there?
Reality must just be a dreadful, horrible, fearsome place for them.
Posted by: Dan | May 4, 2008 6:37 PM
This worries me a lot. Having just graded exams with an essay about Grastang's hypothesis (the grades were not good)
PZ sorry you didn't make Time's 100 most influential people, I would have voted for you if I was thinking about it.
Posted by: Mike | May 4, 2008 6:42 PM
Those "facts" are written in a dialect of English known as Moronic White Trash.
In theory, it is fixable with a generation or two of education. But in this case, maybe not. Sounds like we have found the missing link between reptiles and mammals!
Posted by: raven | May 4, 2008 6:43 PM
@#12 Sastra --
No, it seems it's even worse than that. They've turned knowledge into a *bad* thing. I went into the library and got this message:
You're then given the option to "Read More Science", which, like pretty much all things involving knowledge in this game, makes you lose "will" points (-10 in this case...giving a presentation to a class is -8...).
This game is quickly going from amusing to just sad....
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 6:45 PM
You are in complete intellectual darkness.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Posted by: J | May 4, 2008 6:48 PM
@ #11:
Unfortunate, that there is no correlation to fertility.
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | May 4, 2008 6:53 PM
So, I clicked on "Crevocafe" to "debate" someone... Then I clicked on some random person who was listed as being on the creationist side...
This is what showed up:
"You turn toward deadlyman3000 and say "How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?"
deadlyman3000 replies to your argument with "Think about it, God is all powerful, he could have used a variety of ways to fit the animals in- He could have shrunk them, make the boat larger, or many other possible choices. He is God afterall!"
Spinoza seems to be annoyed, un-satisified with the answer, but uncertain how to respond to that.
deadlyman3000 says his own argument: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
You think for a moment and say "Scientists say that we evolved from chimps, not monkeys! I guess that God of yours didn't decide to give you a brain so you could realise this, huh?"
deadlyman3000 nods, enjoying seeing his opponent make a complete fool of himself.
Once again, you challenge your opponent: "How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?"
deadlyman3000 replies to your argument with "Well... um... all that matters is that he did!"
Spinoza smiles with victory.
Spinoza wins the debate!
You gain 10 exp points"
... I didn't do anything except click a button.
My responses would have been so much better than the above... I should get 10 trillion experience points...
Posted by: Spinoza | May 4, 2008 6:54 PM
... Okay, so then I just tried again... did basically the same thing and THIS is what came up:
"You turn toward Howy and say "How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?"
Howy replies to your argument with "Well... um... all that matters is that he did!"
Spinoza smiles with victory.
Howy says his own argument: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
You think for a moment and say "Scientists say that we evolved from chimps, not monkeys! I guess that God of yours didn't decide to give you a brain so you could realise this, huh?"
Howy nods, enjoying seeing his opponent make a complete fool of himself.
Once again, you challenge your opponent: "How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?"
Howy replies to your argument with "Well... um... all that matters is that he did!"
Spinoza smiles with victory.
Howy wins the debate!"
Uh... wtf. What a retarded game.
Posted by: Spinoza | May 4, 2008 6:55 PM
@#19 Spinoza --
Yeah, all of the "debates" go like that. Except sometimes they say the "god could have done anything" argument both times, sometimes they say the "all that matters is he did both times," and sometimes they say one and then the other. It seems that the monkey/chimp thing is the only thing *you* ever say, though. If you try to debate with a fellow evolutionist, then you're "practicing" for your debate with the creationists, and the other evolutionist plays devil's advocate, and the argument goes *exactly* the same.
You'd think they could have been creative, at least...apparently that is a privilege only their god enjoys, though.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 6:57 PM
Wow, that "argument" is the pinnacle of illiteracy. Of course, as soon as I saw the words "Represent your ideology ....", I was outta there.
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | May 4, 2008 6:57 PM
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a creationist here, yammering nonsense.
> bang head against wall
Posted by: UprightAlice | May 4, 2008 6:58 PM
Teh stoopid, it 6urnnnz1!!!
Really, what's so frightening about this is that it's fairly typical (at least so far as I've seen). The creobots are nowhere near well educated, don't want to be well educated, distrust anyone or anything that appears to be well educated, and feel aggressively inclined toward stopping education in its tracks. It's bad enough that you really can't tell the sincerely fucked up people from the trolls, even after a moment or two of reflection.
There are a great many people out there for whom science and rational thought are deeply suspect by their very nature. Such people honestly feel that if it's not directly rooted to some Biblical "thought" or scripture then it's very likely essentially flawed and prone to causing evil. Pointing out all the good science does, and how it depends on rational thought, and how this does not negate "spirituality"* because it's unrelated to it, does not mollify them. There is, at the root of it, an inherent distrust of all things fallible, imperfect, mortal, animal. When you feel vulnerable, anything can look like a threat. Fundies are terribly threatened people with their backs to the wall, living in a world too big and uncontrollable for their fragile psyches to deal with.
The more I look at humans, the more I see very smart animals who sometime forget that they are, in fact, animals.... Very odd animals, to be sure, but it seems to me that that's just an outcome or symptom of our intelligence, and something that ought to be overcome before it critically debilitates us. Do other animals wish that they were something else, or is that a particularly human quirk?
* IMO (like nearly everything else), "Spirituality" is not a bad thing, per se. It's just a way of expressing our feelings and sense of experience using transcendent/poetic language (metaphor, simile, symbolism). However, I think that there are a great many more ways of expressing the same things that do not put one at risk of slipping in woo. However respectable I may find a "spiritual" person to be, I am always a little worried for him or her because there are usually some very ominous trappings lying in wait for them.
Posted by: Moody834 | May 4, 2008 6:59 PM
Okay, I'm playing as a creationist now...and the only difference is that this time, the evolutionist get to say his argument twice, and I win the debate.
Also, I found that there is one variation of the "evolutionist" argument beyond the one that occurred in #20 Spinoza's post:
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 7:00 PM
Creationist brains would violate the second law of thermodynamics and therefore cannot exist.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | May 4, 2008 7:01 PM
Well, on the bright side, there's this hot new Catholic pilgrimage site where you can buy holy oil and EVERYTHING!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24454559
Posted by: Cameron | May 4, 2008 7:02 PM
You find a jewel encrusted egg.
You have no curiosity, so you ignore it.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 7:05 PM
OMFSM. This game is really weird.
As a creationist, you can go to the church to confess. But to do so costs $300. WTF?! If you try to confess without having sufficient money, it tells you:
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 7:08 PM
J (#17):
Thou hast done well in defeating the monster of humorlessness, J! Thou has gained 22 gold and 42 experience points.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | May 4, 2008 7:09 PM
Here's what happens if you're a creationist and go into the library (see my comment #16 for the evolution version) --
The only use of knowledge is in order to defeat knowledge. How depressing.
Incidentally, if anyone is considering playing this game, my first suggestion would be: don't. But if you, like me, can't help yourself, I suggest playing as a creationist. It's vaguely more amusing than the evolution option.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 7:11 PM
Okay, I'm beginning to think this may be a joke. (Poe's Law, I know, but...)
One of the books offered in the "Bookstore" is Applied Logical Theory. If you click for info, you get the following summary:
There's also a book called "Beneficial science found in Scientology". Its summary:
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 7:21 PM
Agressively ignorant.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Tim Fuller | May 4, 2008 7:23 PM
Evolution was wrong because Darwin is now know to said so during his death. Monkeys exist now next to people in places where people now lives. So no species have seen changing into species different from first species. Monkeys and man thus therefore not related.
Sorry, I was just trying to write like a creationist. It hurt my brain.
Posted by: MarcusA | May 4, 2008 7:42 PM
@#35 MarcusA --
And you still did better than them, since I at least understood your "arguments" the first time around.
Hint: don't use words like "because," "thus," or "therefore." "So" is okay in very limited use, as long as it's unclear what part of your previous statement it is referring to. You might want to throw in a few more obvious typos as well. You did a good job sticking to the "no comma" rule, though.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 7:47 PM
You are likely to be eaten by a grue
Posted by: AlanWCan | May 4, 2008 7:53 PM
An additional reason to avoid playing: To do anything interesting (other than the aforementioned fake debates), you need to become a "sponsor" and buy fossils. One could also get fossils by referring friends (PZ would have quite a few by now, if he'd put his referral link), but they seem a bit too integral to the game.
Posted by: Randall | May 4, 2008 8:08 PM
Etha Williams:
I think "thus" and "therefore" are allowed if they are together and unintelligible as MarcusA did. However, I believe "therefore" should have been in all caps.
Posted by: eewolf | May 4, 2008 8:09 PM
These people can't think, can't write a coherent sentence, are hostile to science and can still write code? Programing must be a lot easier than I thought. Maybe I should take it up.
Posted by: Blind Squirrel FCD | May 4, 2008 8:24 PM
"Darwin himself have written a science manuscript stating that evolution is not possible just before his death."
I still hear this one every so often.
If historians found evidence that showed that James Clerk Maxwell recanted his field equations on his death bed, do you think that these people would stop using their cell phones, computers and all other electrical devices?
Posted by: Tony Popple | May 4, 2008 8:30 PM
"Darwin himself have written a science manuscript stating that evolution is not possible just before his death."
Just about everything of record that remains that Darwin ever wrote is available online here:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
why don't you point out where his recantation is for us?
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 4, 2008 8:37 PM
There has been serious inflation between now and when this is set, On the Origin of Species costs, $5,000,000!
Posted by: Gobaskof | May 4, 2008 8:39 PM
BTW, as someone who was never educated as a Creationist, I was deeply mystified the first time (here, only in the last few months) that I saw the "...then why are there still monkeys?" argument. The only reaction I could muster was "Huh? Why wouldn't there be?". Clearly there's some kind of misunderstanding of what evolution means in the mind of someone who says it, but honestly, I can't fathom it. Can someone here explain it?
Posted by: Nemo | May 4, 2008 8:49 PM
Can someone here explain it?
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC150.html
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 4, 2008 8:54 PM
There used to be some debate whether the term 'cretin' was from 'christian'.
The IDiots and their fellow two-legged sheep have removed any doubt.
Posted by: shonny | May 4, 2008 8:55 PM
@#44 Nemo --
I think it comes from the teleological misunderstanding of evolution (demonstrated in the Jack Chick tract posted recently) that everything is progressing towards man. So once that progress has been made, the old, imperfect organism should no longer exist. Of course, by this "logic" pretty much nothing should exist other than man...but I guess since the ultimate goal, man, needs plants and animals for food, they're allowed to exist. I don't know. The "logic" is so garbled that I'm having difficulty trying to explain it.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 4, 2008 8:56 PM
I'm beginning to think this game is just an elaborate joke. It's possible I'm giving too much credit, here; I've done it before.
Posted by: JM Inc. | May 4, 2008 8:59 PM
Mike O'Risal:
Really? It seems to me that they're nearly ideal closed systems.
Posted by: Epikt | May 4, 2008 9:05 PM
Your wagon has broken an axle. Lose 4 days.
Posted by: Carlie | May 4, 2008 9:25 PM
One lineage is
alloweddestined to become Man, or should I say Mankind. All the other "kinds" are stuck where they are. Anything else would be... unnatural. Of course, in this model, the common ancestor is Adam. Or dust, if you want to go all the way back. *smirk*Posted by: Kseniya | May 4, 2008 9:29 PM
Right. You have to assume that any given ancestor species turns into one and only one daughter species; there is no branching. As soon as you admit branching, the "why are there monkeys?" argument ceases making any sense at all.
Hence my version of this argument, which is "If we evolved, why are there kumquats?"
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 4, 2008 9:39 PM
PZ, with that spelling and grammar it sounds like a kid. It's a cherry-picked worst case (not that their quality is all that good on average), an irrelevant item for sport. Really, that's straw-manning the personnel of the opposition.
BTW, here's a pertinent real question for someone to answer: Yes we see intermediary forms between reptiles and birds, having some feathers and reptilian features together etc. But what about the feathers themselves, what sort of intermediate condition developed and how did it persist meanwhile? The real question is intermediate features, not intermediate "forms" (creatures.) Don't take it as some "attempt" to make a point, if you can answer then do so.
Posted by: Neil B. | May 4, 2008 9:46 PM
To clarify, I'm not looking for a refutation, but rather for an explanation of why, from a creationist's perspective, it would even make sense to ask such a question. The Talk.Origins stuff doesn't really address that, for me.
I'd guess it was about teleology too, but like Etha says, that doesn't entirely explain it...
Posted by: Nemo | May 4, 2008 9:47 PM
Neil, the argument you're makings is basically the Irreducible Complexity argument: what good is half a feather? Well, it turns out that half a feather is useful for, say, dissipating heat. Just because a transitional feature couldn't do what the final feature does, doesn't mean that it didn't provide its owner with an evolutionary advantage over those without it.
Posted by: Randall | May 4, 2008 9:50 PM
Nemo #44 wrote:
Etha's close, but creationists don't really think everything is progressing towards becoming human. It's just that the model they're using is a bizarre combination of evolution, teleology, and the creationist idea of "kinds." The kind of animal -- say, fish -- turns into another kind of animal -- say, a bird. Fishes are swimming around, then some of them leap in the air, grow feathers, and turn into birds. Eventually, they all would -- if evolution was true.
But they don't. There are still fish. So evolution can't be true.
With monkeys, once some of them start to turn into humans, they eventually all would, because it's a "higher" -- ie more advanced -- form. Creationists who use this argument then are not only thinking teleologically -- evolution working towards a goal -- they're also picturing evolution in a way which visualizes the "growth" of a species as just like individual growth. You start out a baby, then you turn into a child, teenager, and adult. Monkeys then are like humans who didn't grow up.
What kept them from growing up? Huh? This question stumps evolutionists. They just kind of gape and blink. Gotcha.
Posted by: Sastra | May 4, 2008 9:51 PM
@42: "...why don't you point out where his recantation is for us?"
[lol]
It's been expelled, you insensitive clod!
[/lol]
Posted by: Moody834 | May 4, 2008 10:02 PM
Creationists continue to sink so much further into deeper and deeper levels of hopeless, mind-numbing stupidity, that I'm convinced what happens at baptism ceremonies these days is that the baby's head isn't merely sprinkled with water, but that the entire head is deliberately immersed for long enough that oxygen deprivation causes irreversible, lifelong brain injury.
Posted by: Martin | May 4, 2008 10:03 PM
Tell me about it. It's like some perverse version of Zeno's paradox, only instead of arrows failing to catch up to tortoises there's your opinion of creationists forever lagging behind the grim reality.
Posted by: Sophist FCD | May 4, 2008 10:05 PM
I'm convinced what happens at baptism ceremonies these days is that the baby's head isn't merely sprinkled with water, but that the entire head is deliberately immersed for long enough that oxygen deprivation causes irreversible, lifelong brain injury.
of course.
didn't you know that's where the idea for waterboarding came from?
:P
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 4, 2008 10:06 PM
OK Randall, that's a start, but I wish you (and others) wouldn't call even Socratic questions "arguments." I should be able to see if you can come up with something without it being turned into a "case." I'll make an overt case if I want to, but even that done later doesn't make the first question an "argument." Arguments are defined by current format, not (heh) teleological assumptions of the listeners.
As for feathers, I'm also wondering how all the hooks etc. got there. Note that part of the question of how things happen (I like you assume rationalistic birth of any complex life from parents, not miraculous formation) is about how to imagine what happens to genes: how much randomness, how much is "contrived" in anthropic type ways (regardless of how you imagine the reason why) to end up favorably to higher development, etc. I mean, if the fine structure constant etc. at the very foundational end is already favorable, then why not particular ways for complex molecules to hook up, to make advanced traits more likely etc. at the higher end. It's convenient that prospects for such developments are so handy.
Posted by: Neil B. | May 4, 2008 10:06 PM
"Darwin himself have written a science manuscript stating that evolution is not possible just before his death."
My high school students used to ask if it was true that Darwin went crazy in his last years. Even the creationist in our science department brought the subject up. I think that a local pastor was spreading this disinformation in his sermons. These people just make stuff up. What is the saying? ... a lie can travel twice round the world before the truth can even get its shoes on. If you call them on their lies, they'll just shamelessly keep repeating them to new audiences or come up with new ones. There is no end to this.
Posted by: C Barr | May 4, 2008 10:26 PM
With apologies to JBS Haldane:
Creationist arguments are not only stupider than we suppose; they are stupider than we [b]can[/b] suppose.
Posted by: Screechy Monkey | May 4, 2008 10:31 PM
It appears to be a parody. If you type google crevoscope and parody, you get a few links, that refuse to load.
I got the cache of one to work (very, very slowly). On it, someone named "Yasic" claims to have made it and says it's meant to be a parody. He says "Remember, my game is a parody, you should have fun regardless of which side you take, all sides are made fun of." The same person mentions the game on other sites as one his favorite games and says it's "for obvious reasons."
Google Cache
Original Site
Posted by: RiciaH | May 4, 2008 11:04 PM
Pathetic.
This is one of those rare examples of someone who is even less knowledgeable of programming than they are of evolutionary theory, trying to program an anti-evo "game".
Even money says this person wears flipflops or slipons because
they haven't mastered the algorithm for tying a shoestring.
For inquiring minds, the Admin contact is:
Naumenko, Yaroslav sayasic@gmail.com
Screechy Monkey #63 WOOT!
Cheers,
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye | May 4, 2008 11:15 PM
you know, I was looking at this, and I kept thinking...
Crevoscope?
seems like a place to have a fake virtual debate for those that don't want to have real virtual debate on a blog.
*shakes head*
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 4, 2008 11:23 PM
@ #11
Hehe, hey, this game sounds an awful lot like role playing, doesn't it?
Yes, yes. I was thinking the same thing. I remember back in the days when Pokemon was all the rage..and I just never got it.
Wait, what? You fight, and the opponent with the highest level wins, and then the winner gets a higher level and more fighting powers..I ..see..
Oh, and then it evolves. Of course, you mean that it produces viable offspring with it's own characteristics which have been selected for by a predation or resource deficiency? And others of the same species in the same geographical area have the same pressures, and over time and subsequent generations the population as a whole develops characteristics similar to those originally selected for?
Oh..no, you mean that your weird pet just oscillates slightly and then grows taller?
Why didn't Darwin think of this? It's so much easier and much less time consuming. Sounds wonderful. *clicks on library link*
Posted by: Sam. | May 4, 2008 11:26 PM
We are returning to moderating all comments, as we did before. More soon. Posted by: Chris C. Mooney | April 24, 2008 2:46 PM
I must have missed that...
Posted by: Kevin | May 4, 2008 11:26 PM
Doug @ #4
I'm wondering what the point of your link was? With no citations or data it's hard to take you seriously in either your comment or your take on conscious thought, although the idea is intriguing.
Posted by: Jens | May 4, 2008 11:37 PM
Something to consider:
The genome of a human and a chimp are different by 3.9% = 117 million DNA base pairs. Even if a chimp would've had to only mutate 3 of those pairs, there's a probability of 55 million billion years.
Posted by: Jon | May 4, 2008 11:37 PM
You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
This game sounds like the directions on a shampoo bottle.
Lather, Rinse Repeat.
Posted by: DLC | May 4, 2008 11:45 PM
It's no Zork... :(
Posted by: Eric | May 5, 2008 12:01 AM
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
Posted by: Hematite | May 5, 2008 12:03 AM
Probabilities are not measured in years. Copying, pasting and quite possibly mangling a block of text does not constitute an argument. I hope this was not intended as such.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | May 5, 2008 12:07 AM
Neil B, #61:
The short answer is D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's: Things are the way they are because they got that way.
In other words, there's some developmental pathway by which the fractal structure of feathers is recursively generated, with moderating factors at various levels of recursion to produce specific features such as hooks. The precise details of that pathway may be known to somebody, but not to me.
Taking two steps back, one can concoct plausible just-so stories about the adaptive value of feather-like structures first for thermoregulation, then for gliding, and finally for powered flight. There was a recent Nova episode about some wind-tunnel experiments aimed at validating (or falsifying) explanations of this sort.
In between, there's presumably an evo-devo-flavored analysis that could be done to show why the evolution of feathers was constrained by the available developmental pathways to produce the kinds of recursive structures and fine details we see in actual feathers. Whether anybody has done that analysis I have no idea.
I'm not sure which of these three levels your question is aimed at, and I'm not sure that the complete answer at all levels is even known. But I think most of us are pretty confident that the answers are knowable, if somebody does the necessary research.
Posted by: Gregory Kusnick | May 5, 2008 12:21 AM
Holy crap. I've long had fantasies of creating an educational MMORPG that would teach kids hands-on science, by giving them a virtual lab to run virtual experiments in order to make real discoveries. This game...is not what I had in mind.
Posted by: Ian | May 5, 2008 12:22 AM
Ooh. Those Big Numbers make kinda mathy, but it could be way mathier. O_o
Posted by: Kseniya | May 5, 2008 12:28 AM
> wield 'spear of destiny'
You begin wielding a spear of destiny in your right hand.
> mount dragon
You climb on the back of a dragon and begin riding it.
> bash creationist
You swing your shield at a creationist and miss.
> bash creationist
You swing your shield at a creationist but your attack has no effect.
> flee south
You run for your life and gasp for air.
> north
The main chamber of the Temple of Madness is littered with the remains of those foolish enough to challenge its inhabitants.
A creationist is here with fingers in its ears.
A creationist is here with fingers in its ears.
A High Priest is here leading his sheep.
> bash creationist
You swing your shield at a creationist but your attack has no effect.
> flee south
You run for your life and gasp for air.
> quit
Thanks for playing!
Posted by: mwb | May 5, 2008 12:33 AM
I think that game needs a huge revamping, 15 minutes to restore 10 points of will, or a donation of RL $. At that rate it will will take longer then the existence of the entire universe (
Posted by: Dave | May 5, 2008 12:43 AM
Ian :
No... of course not. It's a great idea, though.
What an interesting change of pace that would be. Heck - it would be a paradigm shift.
The problem with MMPORGs is that the player rarely learns what the character "learns," regardless of whether or not the skill is less mundane than combat arts or spellcasting - like, say, fletching, shearing sheep, making pastries, or mining for fish.
It's seductive, though, and given the almost total lack of RP in MMPORGs these days, all that's left is level-grind, a bit of chit-chat now and then, and a virtually (!) endless series of artificial goals and accomplishments that ultimately lead nowhere and yield nothing for the player, even as the character achieves great skill, fame, and wealth. It's odd.
I don't want to sound overly harsh, for I've spent quite a few too many hours in the MPORG world myself, and it's an enjoyable pastime... in moderation... up to a point.
This game sounds like the worst of all possible virtual worlds, though. All this pretending to gain knowlege of very real things... for the purpose of pretending to match wits with someone who likely doesn't know any more (or less) about the real subject than you do. Don't you even get to select an argument to make? It's double-odd.
My point is... uh... hell if I know. My brain is mush now anyway.
"You find a creationist's brain the size of a plover's egg!"
Posted by: Kseniya | May 5, 2008 12:48 AM
Ooh, mwb (#78) that was Gemstoney!
Posted by: Kseniya | May 5, 2008 12:51 AM
Silly me... I thought maybe the Bandogge should wade into the site, then I read some of it. It's not worth his time to lift his leg on.
Posted by: Patricia C. | May 5, 2008 12:55 AM
@#58 Martin --
This would actually go a long way to explain Kenny's assertion that near-death Experiences proof the existence of God.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 5, 2008 12:57 AM
Etha: LOL, indeed! :-D
Posted by: Kseniya | May 5, 2008 1:16 AM
Clever, Hematite. Quite clever. I'd almost forgotten that film.
Posted by: Sili | May 5, 2008 1:28 AM
My mistake, I meant it would take 55 million billion years (get rid of the probability part).
Do humans have a conscience?