Pharyngula

Posted by: Abdul Alhazred | July 15, 2010 12:37 PM

Those are the same magic platypuses who swam home all the way from mount Ararat. ;)

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 12:38 PM

Yep. It's a creationist game.

motherfucking insidious bastards.

well, it's obvious not ALL of them are complete morons, though it's still the case that all of them are sleazy, underhanded, bastards.

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 12:42 PM

Actually, PZ, this might be one of the few times I've ever disagreed with you (and this is the first time I've ever posted on your blog).

I'm a biology teacher, and a student sent this to me at midnight the other day. I was up until 1:30 attempting to beat the game (finally did). I think it is incredibly useful and I might try it next time we talk about cell parts.

I'd say that you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater if you want to keep this game out of the classroom because it doesn't talk about the endosymbiotic nature of the chloroplasts and mitochondrian. However, if you play it enough, when you need to make more chloroplasts/mitochondrian, the cell doesn't make them the way it makes all of the other organelles - you have to click on one of them and tell them to "divide". Now, while it didn't really say much about WHY this is, I'd say a good 5 minute wrapup afterword would clean up any misinformation with the students. "Why do you guys think that you can make more peroxisomes from the ER, but you can't produce more mitochondria directly?"

As for the credits, I honestly don't care who helped out, though I'm baffled why they'd ask Liberty University when any other biology department (or biology book) would give much better information.

My biggest complaint about the game is that much of it is things that we don't cover in an a freshman biology course (we don't get to peroxisomes or defensins), but if I were to teach this, I'd tell the students to focus on the material that we'd already have gone over. After a bit, you lose yourself into the game, and I found myself thinking "Gah! I need more nucleic acids - hurry up, ribosomes, so I can recycle the mRNA!" That's the ultimate goal of something like this with my students.

Besides, I teach a very in-depth course at my school on evolution, so I'm not at all worried that they'd walk out from this game and suddenly start calling me The Great Satan. All of them would probably just be thrilled that we got to play an educational video game in school. Right now the only good online biology video game I've been able to find is Who Wants To Live A Million Years which has its own discrepancies with natural selection, but it gets the majority of the points across to the students.

I'd rather have them use a video game that is 95% accurate and 100% useful (and correct the inaccuracies myself) than wait around for a perfect evolution video game, which still hasn't come around yet.

Posted by: jaranath | July 15, 2010 12:44 PM

The game's creator, Anthony Pecorella, is a WFU grad. Not clear from my brief iPhone googling whether he was a student of Macosko's, but there is a press release on WFU's site the features a photo of Macosko (but bizarrely doesn't mention him at all.)

Sadly, this game was honored at the White House back in may as part of some event about MacArthur foundation education grants...one of which paid for this. To be fair, I doubt anyone had a clue what was going on with the game.

Also: There seems to be a creationist obsession with platypuses...I'm sure the choice is an inside nod to that.

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 12:48 PM

PrudeHawkeye@6 "As for the credits, I honestly don't care who helped out, though I'm baffled why they'd ask Liberty University when any other biology department (or biology book) would give much better information."

So much for skepticism!

Because, it's intended to be the "camel's nose". One would have to go out of one's way to pick Liberty University (unless it happened to be next door).

Posted by: apostrophobia | July 15, 2010 12:56 PM

I played to the first level, and the "mysterious figures" and their conversation were creepy and pointless. When they compliment each other on "building cells," alarm bells started ringing. Granted that was after reading this post, but there is no realistic biology here.

As a game to cover the parts of the cell, maybe. It could also be used as #13 sort of suggests as a tool to clarify critical thinking about evolution and how the game is unrealistic.

Are these guys getting any money out of this?

Posted by: edmangoodrich | July 15, 2010 1:00 PM

As an aside, any game which depicted evolution as it actually happens would be incredibly boring, because it would necessitate removing the player's influence from the game. Basically one would load the game and watch as species unfolded over time.

So, just like Spore or EVO, if one wants to play evolution with any level of interactivity, it immediately ceases to be evolution, and becomes intelligent design.

Kinda' sad, too, because I'd love to see a solid game about evolution.

Posted by: Poor Wandering One | July 15, 2010 1:04 PM

I left a note re: the ID bias in the game but as my knowledge base is History/Library Science I do not know enough to refute this bias properly.

I urge Dr.Myers and the other folks with real understanding to add to the discussion on the CellCraft forums. Let the designers of the game know where they went off the rails and they can either fix the more looney bits with an upgrade or at least learn the real science so CellCraft II will be better.
~will

Posted by: hauntedchippy | July 15, 2010 1:06 PM

Here's a game called Orbit.
http://www.2dplay.com/orbit/orbit.swf
In it the player gets to set the position and velocities of massive objects and watch as the system evolves under gravity.
Is anyone going to seriously going argue that this a creationist tool to instil a "sense of agency" behind planetary motion in the minds of the young?
Would you argue that since the player, must "intelligently" decide upon the initial conditions that this games would be ineffective as a tool for examining planetary motion?

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 1:15 PM

In case anyone else might find it useful, I always show a "game" to my students called "evolites".
http://reflect.martincrownover.com/games/evolites/index.php
No, its most definitely NOT a perfect evolution game or simulator. But its REALLY good at showing what I want it to.

I break my Evo into 3 simple points:
1. Variation
2. Selection
3. Heredity
I make them watch this simulation for a minute at the beginning of the class and look for the variation, selection, and heredity. Where do you see each one demonstrated. Then I put the game in the background and let it run all class, and I have them predict what the cells will be like at the end. After 90 minutes, the circles are usually smaller, usually one color, and are whizzing around the screen at high speeds. This shows them how powerful natural selection can be to let the more fit outcompete and outbreed the others.
Its most definitely not a perfect evolution simulator (they can't evolve past a single "cell"), but it works, and THEY GET IT.

To me, as a teacher, thats the most important part. If you have to correct my (hopefully few) mistakes at the college level in these students, I've done my job, because they kept interest in the subject.

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 15, 2010 1:18 PM

Echoing others, I'm going to have to disagree with PZ here for once.

As he stated, "reality makes for a poor game". Some shortcuts do have to be made for the sake of focus; even the best-made educational games will have this fault. Perhaps there could have been some way to add the organelles in a more scientifically accurate way, but that wasn't the point. The point, as I saw it, was to succinctly describe the functions of the various organelles.

I don't deny the "credentials" and even perhaps the intentions of those who made the game. However, I blame the shortcomings more in the necessities of game-making. When I played it, I didn't even detect any of the creationist nonsense - "I need a new organelle...now where will I...oh good, the game is giving it to me. That will make it simple. Now I can learn what it does." I suspect that many of my generation and younger, who are used to game-mechanic shortcuts, will have the same reaction.

In fact, the issues that I did have were with the game mechanics. It basically consists of 6 tutorial levels and 2 game-levels, and the tutorials felt especially railroaded (most tutorials are). For an overview of the cell functions, it works well, but it sacrifices gameplay for education so that after a few levels it becomes anvilicious.

Its lack of gameplay depth, unfortunately, does convey the sense that it's intended for propaganda rather than real education...but some edutainment can still be had.

Apparently my first account, RPJ, is locked (probably because I never actually used it). Is it worth trying to unlock it, and if so, how?

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 1:21 PM

Students leaving the classroom having played this game for a class period aren't going to walk out thinking "Boy, I love how mitochondria appear out of thin air! God is awesome!". They'll walk out of class saying "yeah, we got to play a video game in biology today. It wasn't too bad". Hopefully the cell parts will be lodged in their brains, but I have doubt that anything else will.

You may quibble about whether or not its a good game (which is a fair point - I'd have to get a test run from students to see what they think), but to my mind, its must be so subversive that me and the student who sent it to me played the entire game without a single notice of this.

I think it takes great leaps of logic to go from this game to ID. Spore is a much, much more egregious example, and that one doesn't even have any science to back it up.

Posted by: jaranath | July 15, 2010 1:28 PM

Ah. Here's a much clearer press release. This was Macosko's idea from the start:

http://www.wfu.edu/news/release/2009.05.21.m.php

Note the language in that press release:

“The board game was my attempt to show how the insides of a living cell are similar to what happens inside a city,” Pecorella explained. “Garbage trucks, delivery vans, and power plants keep our cities running, and in the same way, cells have organelles and molecular machinery that clear away garbage, move cargo, and process energy.”

In the CellCraft video game, these same analogies will be employed to teach children how cells function.

Macosko and Shtridelman work together with Wake Forest researcher George Holzwarth, professor emeritus of physics, to unravel the inner workings of living cells. Their studies have revealed new insights into the tiny molecular “motors” that move intracellular objects along microscopic “railways.”

“These molecular motors are amazing,” Shtridelman remarked. “It’s easy to see how they could inspire an exciting video game that appeals to kids while teaching them a lot about life inside a cell.”

This game is very much intended to reinforce standard ID creationist memes. I don't know if the ability to teach basic organelle function outweighs the problem of false impressions about cell function in general, but it's a valid criticism (witness the similar debate over the lovely Harvard animations), and it's an impression they want to reinforce.

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 1:30 PM

RPJohnston@28
I agree. The tutorial stuff does get a bit long, and I would have liked a few more levels, but it serves its intended purpose.

I'd also encourage everyone to at least look at evolites. Unfortunately, you have to download the game, and its not intuitive how to actually play it.
http://reflect.martincrownover.com/games/evolites/index.php
Basically, I'd suggest setting mutations to high, as it causes them to evolve faster.

But I think we're hitting on larger point here: education vs. entertainment. In a college class, I don't think entertainment serves a purpose (well, maybe occasionally), because many of the students have chosen to be there. In high school, where I teach, the students don't have much choice to be there, and if they did, most would not be in my science class. This means that I'm working with a tough crowd, and I have to go to great lengths to make sure the students enjoy class and the subject. That means playing video games from time to time, if the game itself has educational value, which this one clearly does.

Please don't discount teacher's abilities to guide students both before and after playing the game: "now, when you guys play this, you'll notice that the mitochondria suddenly 'appear'...". I can correct any mistakes (deliberate or unintentional) myself, and I am reading every comment for things that I might need address, but at the end of the day, I can't wait for the Perfect Biology Game to come along.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 1:31 PM

I think it takes great leaps of logic to go from this game to ID.

only if you are blissfully unaware of the stunts they have pulled over the years.

only if you have never seen them use the platypus as an example of "creation" because it's obviously a "chimera"...

yeah.

I hate to say it, but people's ignorance of creationist agendas doesn't mean they aren't there.

I'm glad the game isn't heavy handed about it, and will allow some to indeed remain ignorant.

that hardly makes me want to endorse the thing.

Posted by: Matt C. | July 15, 2010 1:32 PM

I see both points here, but I agree with PZ.

When I was in college I lived in an apartment with two of my friends. I was a biology major and neither of my friends were. One of these friends was big into video games and ended up buying Spore from all the hype over it. He told me how it was an interesting game about evolution and I gave it a try. After playing it I quickly realized that it was definitely nothing like evolution and in fact more akin to intelligent design. I politely told my room mate that, yeah it's fun, but it isn't anything like evolution and is actually much more like ID. This started a very long argument between myself and both my friends about whether or not the game accurately portrayed evolution. Both of them only had high school level knowledge of biology but still to this day think I'm being "too technical" with my criticisms of the game.

I find this absolutely mind boggling because the flaw is so fundamental to anybody with a proper understanding of biology and evolution. I blame their high school education for giving them a false sense of biological understanding (so much so that they were willing to argue with somebody who was at the time a senior majoring in biology).

Posted by: musicmancz | July 15, 2010 1:36 PM

Oh good, I'm a month away from going to Wake Forest. I hope Masosko's views don't taint his teachings.

Posted by: gussnarp | July 15, 2010 1:39 PM

The game frankly doesn't look like much fun to me. Level one and two practically do everything for you, it's way too boring to expect kids to be engaged with it. Maybe it gets better, but if you've lost the kids at the outset, forget it. It's also far too juvenile, it seems aimed at kids much younger than the level of the information it's presenting. And as for the information, it's not presented well, and it's likely to be ignored in play. If you want to convey information via a video game, you have to actually be creative and make the information a more key part of game play. Anyway, it's an interesting idea, poorly executed, and sadly sewn with seeds of intelligent design rubbish.

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 1:46 PM

I get the feeling reading some of these comments that people are seeing creationist boogey-men behind every door.

Its not like this is the only 90 minutes I'll spend with these students the entire semester, this would just be a single day spent learning the cell parts. If the makers of this game did this to surreptitiously sneak ID into my classroom, they miserably failed, and they'll get a beat-down a couple months afterward when I start evolution.

A game like this would hit about 3 weeks into the semester (at least for me), when students stop playing nice with the teacher, and start to show their true selves, and make up their own mind if they like the teacher/subject. Studying organelles sucks - my students have to memorize 15 of them, know if they're in animals/plants or eukaryotes/prokaryotes, and be able to summarize their function in 5 words or less.

Would a game like this help that? Most definitely. Here are some of the things I see them learning from this:
1. Mitochondria burn glucose (for ATP and heat)
2. You need ATP to do ANYTHING in a cell
3. Amino Acids make proteins
4. You need nucleic acids to make proteins
5. Ribosomes assemble amino acids into proteins
6. Chloroplasts take sunlight and make glucose
7. Mitochondria and Chloroplast produce free-radicals as a by-product of photosynthesis and respiration
8. The body uses enzymes to cut up viral RNA (a great intro to restriction enzymes)
9. Defensins protect the cell from invasion
10. Lysosomes are used to digest old organelles and can fight off some pathogens
11. The cell can't INSTANTLY make proteins - it has to first transcribe the mRNA, which has to exit the nucleus, go to the ribosomes on the Rough ER, where it may need to be further modified by the Golgi Apparatus before its ready
12. The smooth ER helps makes the cell membrane
13. The cell membrane is made up of fatty acids

I could go on, but that's just the ones I could list off the top of my head. Now, make a list of the inaccuracies they might get out of playing this game, and tell me how hard it might be for me to correct those things afterward with the students.

Keep in mind that I have to teach them the majority of those things anyways, and you have to balance it - what is the BEST way for them to learn that sort of thing? A powerpoint slide? A lecture? They'd tune it out. A PP/lecture might be good for correcting those mistakes, but its much easier to modify whats already in their head, rather than put it in there entirely.

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 1:48 PM

Curious that they go to great lengths in the encyclopedia to explain how the different organelles in the game differ from actual ones but go out of their way to avoid mention of evolution. There are many places where a mention would be appropriate but is ignored, as with its explanation of why theta defensin is not expressed: "for some reason".

From the end credits:

Dr. Jed Macosko
Scientific advisor and academic coordinator
Wake Forest University

Dr. David A. DeWitt
Biology Advisor
Liberty University

Additional Advising and Research

Pete Dunlap
Sam Flynn
Yuri Shtridelman

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 1:54 PM

I get the feeling reading some of these comments that people are seeing creationist boogey-men behind every door.

you're not paranoid if someone actually IS following you.

you DID see who the primary producers were, right?

Posted by: Perspexo | July 15, 2010 1:56 PM

I,for one, welcome our new Paltypus overlords!

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 1:57 PM

Noturus@46
This game reflects poorly on Liberty University if they are using this as a "wedge" game to sneak ID into the classroom, because if that's the intended purpose, they get a whole truckload of FAIL.

I'd be the first to torpedo this game if I caught a whiff of creationism/ID in it, but its just not really there. Maybe there's a residue of it, as evidenced by its lack of mentioning evolution, but that's a small crime of omission, if anything.

One thing I GUARANTEE students not doing is walking out of my class at the end of the year thinking "gee, I wish we'd gotten to learn some evolution this year".

Every teacher puts together imperfect lesson plan after imperfect lesson plan from the moment the students walk in the door until the time summer break comes around. We never have the perfect way to teach them, so we have to work with limited budgets/resources and cobble together the best possible 90 minutes we can each day for them. This fits my criteria perfectly. Its most definitely not perfect, but dammit - it works for what I'll need it to. I'll address the shortcomings later.

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 2:07 PM

I actually liked the game once I got past its excruciatingly bad start, and though the ID content was a little irritating I would have attributed it to a need for player interaction - until I saw the biology advisor was from Liberty University. Then all the odd little details made sense.

Posted by: pteryxx | July 15, 2010 2:11 PM

We're not the intended audience here, as we've already got a foundation in natural selection and ID argument, so we're resistant to the flawed assumptions in this game. I see teachers here claiming that CellCraft's 90% accuracy makes it worth using, and they'll simply correct its fallacies in their classrooms. What do you think the 90% of teachers unqualified in biology or sympathetic to ID will be doing? And who will be correcting fallacies for all the kids playing this game outside of a biology classroom?

Posted by: theshipwreck | July 15, 2010 2:13 PM

Reading the press release, other than the passages already quoted, this one stood out the most to me.

“The basic premise of CellCraft is based on EA’s (Electronic Arts’) Spore video game,” commented Pecorella, “In Spore, players begin with a single-cell organism and evolve their creature into an empire that spans the galaxy. But in CellCraft, players will begin with a few simple molecular machines and expand until they have a fully-functional cell. Though tiny, the complexity of machines in a cell can be as intricate as an entire empire.”
(emphasis added)

I don't think the main point of the game is to misrepresent science, although it may do so and this can be a fair criticism, but rather to stress the complexity of organelles in the cell. This seems to be Jed Macoskos main focus of research. http://www.discovery.org/a/664

The link above is to an article from the DI, which cited an article from the sfweekly.com.
It is unclear to me why the DI would link to it, as it seems to be critical of ID. Maybe they liked the title.

The more I have looked into the "scientific advisers" the less I like it.

Again I don't see any blatant ID propaganda, but the entire focus of the game seems to promote how incredibly (irreducibly?) complex cell machinery is.

Needless to say, I'm not much interested in this game.

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 2:16 PM

I actually played all the way through it the other day, and I gotta say the writing and characters were definitely likable, and since I haven't taken a bio course in a decade, it was a good refresher on what the organelles look like and do.

I'm well aware of ID tactics thanks to PZ and TalkOrigins and other sites, but I just can't say it really detracted in a game with talking platypuses, an intelligent but sarcastic robot, interstellar travel, and a bumbling world leader in a top hat and monocle.

Really, the "ID" criticism should be focused on the fact that the player controls the cell functions. But to take that away would mean nearly any biology game is impossible or can only be watched on auto-pilot.

This one time, I think they did alright. It's a decent tool for learning the organelles, and the only potential ID problem is only as deep as the problem of kids thinking alien marsupials know English.

Posted by: Dania | July 15, 2010 2:21 PM

Mattir,

I read the press release. What made you think it gave away a wedge strategy motivation? Not taking the game creators' side, but I just don't see it.

This:

“The board game was my attempt to show how the insides of a living cell are similar to what happens inside a city,” Pecorella explained. “Garbage trucks, delivery vans, and power plants keep our cities running, and in the same way, cells have organelles and molecular machinery that clear away garbage, move cargo, and process energy.”

is typical ID-talk. They do want to push creationist ideas into the classroom, but they're not making it too obvious. This game was meant to be a deceptive tool. Remember what their rules are... Don't ever mention God or the Bible. Pretend it's all about the science. Whatever you do, do it in such a way that it won't ring any alarms among the secularists. Concentrate only on the idea of design and agency.

It did remind me of the wedge strategy.

Posted by: James F | July 15, 2010 2:28 PM

So will CellCraft be counted as a peer-reviewed publication supporting intelligent design?

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 15, 2010 2:28 PM

PrudeHawkeye, I think that you are missing the point.

The IDiots are not trying to subvert the idea of evolution - they are trying to subvert the idea of undirected evolution (i.e. "Darwinism"). And PZ is not saying that he hates the game because it attempts to subliminally teach creationism - he hates it because it models a universe and a version of cellular biology that just so happens to map quite nicely to the IDiots account of things, with conspicuous gaps precisely in the same places where they claim there are gaps in "Darwinism".

The overall correctness of what they bothered to include is part of the con - the IDiots whole spiel is that they are looking at the same factual data that the "Darwinists" are, but that "Darwinism" is "just a theory" - and that it is an incomplete (duh) and falsified (false) one. Design is just the tactic to open the wedge - as PZ implies, they are counting on cultural familiarity, peer pressure, and general ignorance and intolerance for scientific minutia to open it big enough for Jeebus to stroll through.

What they are after here is not straight indocrination, but rather familiarity and credibility; and they will certainly gain a little of both if the game should become wildly popular.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 2:33 PM

What they are after here is not straight indoctrination, but rather familiarity and credibility; and they will certainly gain a little of both if the game should become wildly popular.

*ding*

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 2:40 PM

So, first an introduction: my name is Anthony Pecorella and I am the principle designer and director of CellCraft. I am also an atheist.

I was looking around on the internet to see if people were talking about CellCraft, and I came across a scienceblogs.com link and was looking forward to seeing what people thought of it. Imagine my shock when I found out my game was created to further the "ID agenda". One would think I might have been aware of this while working on the game.

Yes, Dr. Macosko and Dr. DeWitt were advisors on the project. Dr. Macosko because he originally came to me to ask for my help, as a game designer, in creating a game about the cell. He knew me because I started up a game design company while at Wake Forest University, where he teaches. Dr. DeWitt was brought on as a friend of Dr. Macosko's who had more expertise in some of the finer details of the microbiology.

The game was entirely my design, and actually tremendously differed from Dr. Macosko's original idea. However, he recognized my knowledge of game design and was willing to let me take the reigns. The game itself was created by a people of a variety of religions and beliefs. We knew that we didn't all agree about evolution, creation, etc., but it didn't matter - we wanted to teach about the science.

In fact, the very first version of the game was going to be entirely evolutionary, though still with player choices in which way to go. This is how the medium works - it is an interactive medium. By your argument making a game about abiogenesis inherently further's ID arguments, since there is intelligence involved. Of course there is - otherwise it wouldn't be interactive. We later moved to this "frankencell" approach because it worked better for our story and moved through the material better (rather than getting caught up in the very early evolutionary theory).

So far from what I've seen, PrudeHawkeye appears to have understood us best - our goal was to, in a reasonably succinct manner, provide a lot of information about how organelles function in a fun experience that would also reinforce the functions since you'd be interacting with the organelles directly. I'd like to think we've accomplished that with some amount of success. If you don't like the game, that's a fine criticism - not everyone will enjoy it. But that's very different from hating it due to an imagined hidden message.

I felt obligated to comment because, indeed, you are seeing the ID boogeyman where he isn't present. It makes me sad to see atheists representing themselves like this and making such assumptions. I'll grant you that there were some ID supporters involved in the game, but that doesn't inherently "ruin" the game or make it propaganda. I'd be happy to answer more specific questions (though I'm working too so I can't get too in depth right now), but I really wanted to set the record straight first.

Posted by: Timberwoof | July 15, 2010 2:41 PM

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/simcity-for-the-intracellular-world/

SimCity for the Intracellular World William Dembski

Check out this video game called CellCraft:

www.kongregate.com/games/CellCraft/cellcraft

This will do much to get people to see the irreducible complexity inside a cell and the obstacle it poses to conventional evolutionary theory.

I would not use a geography game published by the Flat-Earthers, nor an astronomy game published by Aristoteleans. Why use a biology game designed to teach wrong conclusions about complexity?

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 2:46 PM

I don't recall who first suggested the Platypus, but we all loved it. It's an incredibly cute creature that people enjoy seeing and fit the tone of the game. Plus, it's a ridiculous animal that was the best example we could think of that would both be appealing as a character to a human audience and be plausibly (though jokingly) an alien.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 15, 2010 2:49 PM

Dude.

Liberty. University.

You should have run away, fast.

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 2:50 PM

@Anthony Pecorella (70): Nice to hear from ya. And I think you might actually turn these criticisms into praise if you modify the game based on feedback to include more robust evolutionary science and fewer gaps.

You seem to have the game concept and writing down pretty well; I was entertained. I liked the platypuses and robot, there's no question that they're wacky magical aliens. It's just that the science of where organelles come from or how species improve through selection should be equally clear.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 15, 2010 2:57 PM

By your argument making a game about abiogenesis inherently further's ID arguments, since there is intelligence involved.

Uh, wut?

I'm not buying it either. The real question isn't really "why" you did anything anyway, it's why you didn't do things like include evolution, real evolution. It wouldn't be hard to do, and I should think it would add interest to organelles like mitochondria and chloroplasts.

There's no religious agenda behind Spore, either, just a lot of misconceptions about how evolution works. That's why it isn't generally worthwhile for teaching (though good educators could probably use it properly), and your lack of evolution plus the implicit sense of organelles exist for a purpose is why it isn't generally worth much in an educational environment.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Dania | July 15, 2010 3:01 PM

This game says "mysterious beings" instead of "god".

And what would those mysterious beings turn out to be?

Platypuses, of course!

Seriously, this has ID written all over it.

Posted by: CJO | July 15, 2010 3:04 PM

“Garbage trucks, delivery vans, and power plants keep our cities running, and in the same way, cells have organelles and molecular machinery that clear away garbage, move cargo, and process energy.”

The problem here is that these are vague analogies. IDiots and Liberty University "Creation Science" lecturers would like to elevate these similarities to identities: "See, it's designed, like a garbage truck!"

Beyond the level of a vague analogy to function broadly construed, though, these comparisons mislead much more than they illuminate. The function of intracellular waste removal is just like a garbage truck, if garbage trucks were like a swarm of Wall-E-type robots that roam about the cytoplasm at random, poking at everything they bump into to see if it fits the minimal definition of "garbage" by shape, latching onto anything that fits, and heading off in another random direction, to deposit said garbage object near the cell mambrane when it happens to get there so that in a while, another mindless robot embedded in the membrane will engulf it and push it to the other side of the membrane.

That is, not really like garbage trucks at all, except by the minimal analogy "removes unwanted stuff." The game, by following that analogy = identity script, promotes the central concept of ID, that all this stuff is so intricate, and so gosh darn just like all these intricate designed technologies, that it just must also be designed.

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 15, 2010 3:08 PM

*dons tinfoil cap*

Er, Phoenex00017, no offense, but your post smells kinda funny.

PZ puts up a post about CellCraft, and you just happen to poking around the internet and show up less than 3 hours later? And the fact that you felt the need to explain that doesn't seem quite right.

Also, the conspicuous namechecking of PrudeHawkeye seems off-kilter as well. If you (and he) are indeed legit, you might want to consider that such awkward high-fiving is remarkably reminiscent of the classic sockpuppet examples of yore.

Plus, this "It makes me sad to see atheists representing themselves like this and making such assumptions" - well, again, if you are who you say you are, I would assume that you know what a concern troll is and why you might want to avoid sounding like one.

Plus, this: "Their expertise in the field is not discounted by how they interpret the facts."

Same fact, different interpretation. Golly, I've heard that before...

Nevertheless, if you are legit, it should be easy enough to prove. Are you posting from Cellcraftgames now?

*doffs tinfoil hat*

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 3:13 PM

"At some level, I intentionally wanted to avoid dealing with evolution or abiogenesis at all. "

Ok, you left out evolution because you wanted it to be nuetral. So we have a game in which creatures on another planet put their dna into single celled organisms that they designed from scratch and send them to earth. But no mention of evolution, because it wouldn't be nuetral. Who's idea was that again? David "passion is to defend creation using The Word of God" DeWitt? Sorry man, but you got played. A couple changes could make a world of difference though.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 15, 2010 3:15 PM

If we had included evolution, we'd have parents up in arms about it and the game would have a much harder time being used in classrooms. Rather than deal with that, we jumped past that and are just teaching about organelle function - which is also important to learn in classrooms.

Ah, self-censorship in order to pander to morons who hate science.

Well, who could possibly fault you for leaving out the crucial theory in biology when you're intent on pleasing those who hate it?

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 3:17 PM

about the use of the platypus...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/platypus.html

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 15, 2010 3:18 PM

That whole "it needs an organelle, let's give it one!" thing didn't bother those of you who don't see the ID content?

I did find it odd that the "cell" was somehow surviving without a nucleus, mitochondria etc - though wouldn't that fly in the face of "irreducible complexity"?

This is a game, not a documentary. Shortcuts have to be made for the sake of mechanics. Had I made the game, it's likely that I would have simply "unlocked" the next level of complexity as well.

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 15, 2010 3:20 PM

Spore is pretty bad, too. I got a free copy; it's still sitting on my desk unopened.

I was going to ask how you knew it was bad, then, but then I remembered that I vowed a few months ago to never listen to anything PZ said about video games, because apparently he's Too Old(TM).

The Creationist overtones are deeply unfortunate. As to the fact that the character is directing the cell instead of feedback loops... it's a game. I know PZ doesn't understand video games; that's okay. But yeesh... that's a pretty ridiculous criticism, all things considered. Ignoring the ID agenda, it seems totally reasonable that you would anthropomorphize the cell a bit for the purposes of envisioning the purposes of all that various parts.

I think it's too bad for the Creationist overtones. I found myself getting sort of absorbed in it, and getting a more visceral feel for what each organelles purpose was. (I'm not a biologist and the last time I studied any cellular biology was about a decade-and-a-half ago, in high school or maybe early college)

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 3:20 PM

Organelles do have functions, and whether you interpret that as "purpose" or as "evolution" is just how one interprets the facts. I believe it to be evolution, but I understand that other people see it differently.

That right there is NOT going to win you any friends on Pharyngula. Hardened skeptics can smell false equivocation a mile a way >:)

That said, I can appreciate having a limited scope in a small Flash game. That's reasonable. However, if that's really what you were aiming for, then you'd actually be better served by removing the goofy design-by-platypus background and saying "these are separate stages to demonstrate organelle function". As it stands there is a narrative to connect the stages, but the evolutionary science to do the same is missing. It's a broken parallel.

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 3:22 PM

I get namechecked by someone else and I'm accused of sockpuppetry? Ok, I see why you say that, but I don't know of any way to prove I'm not Phoenix. I'm quite amused, however. I'd like to point out that I'm a high school biology teacher and he's a video game designer, and I don't know jack squat about video game design. I'd link to my classroom webpage, but I'd rather keep my school and name private.

CJO@84
You commented that the game leaves the impression "that all this stuff is so intricate". I'd say, well, IT IS INTRICATE. Its VERY intricate. Its INCREDIBLY intricate. Perhaps more could be done to say that it evolved this intricacy, but I guarantee that if this game was simplified, we'd all be in here bitching about how it didn't mention mRNA enough or oversimplified the organelles (heck, even PZ was complaining that it lacked feedback mechanisms, as if freshman biology has time to talk about that stuff).

Posted by: nic nicholson | July 15, 2010 3:25 PM

Expecting organelles to just pop into existence like that is like having a tornado roar through a junkyard and put together a 747!!!

It just can't happen.

When will those creationists learn?

Posted by: Dania | July 15, 2010 3:28 PM

Hmm...

whether you interpret that as "purpose" or as "evolution" is just how one interprets the facts

Same facts, different interpretations...

And yet, here's a group of clearly intelligent evolutionists (I have no idea if this is an entirely atheist forum or not) doing that exact same thing.

Dammit, I hate to sound paranoid but am I really the only one smelling something fishy?

Yeah, maybe I'm being paranoid (and I'm sorry if that's the case) but it's a bit hard not to after so many years watching creationists' tactics.

Gah.

Posted by: legistech | July 15, 2010 3:31 PM

I still think the game has worth.

Yes, it's creationist. But so is SimCity, even while ACTUAL cities aren't really conscious outgrowths, but natural movements of masses of people. New York isn't where it is just randomly, it's there because it's a terrific harbor, and Manhattan itself is on rock strong enough to build skyscrapers. Children who are 12-16 realize NY wasn't started by some people saying, "Hey, this would be a good spot for one of the biggest cities in the world in 400 years."

And frankly, creationist talking point or no, I think casting talking platypuses in the role of a deity has a fair chance of convincing players a deity might not exist. The reason we atheists talk about theists believing in "an invisible man, living in the sky, who has ten things he doesn't want you to do" as comedy is because it's a ridiculous concept, and indeed one even children are dubious of.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 3:32 PM

jay.sweet - Fret no more and just enjoy the game. It is a belief-neutral game. :) I'm thrilled to hear you liked it!

MoonShark - Yeah, I figured you guys wouldn't like that phrase. That doesn't make it less true. It's a philosophy question, and people interpret the world around them differently. Ultimately, you can know the exact same science and have one person believe it was fate and another believe it was random chance guided by selection criteria. I'm sorry that me understanding how people think differently offends you. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

It's news to me that the Platypus is apparently the ID mascot. I already explained why we picked the animal, it was dumb luck that it happened to have other implications for certain people. Regarding the narrative, the point of it is to give the player a purpose, a story, a reason to keep going besides "staying alive". This is why most good games have a good plot. Again, you're interpreting it one way when in fact it had a different reason. I'm starting to understand how authors feel when English majors start analyzing their books. Sure, some probably get it right, but there's a lot of wild speculation too.

Posted by: CJO | July 15, 2010 3:35 PM

I'd say, well, IT IS INTRICATE. Its VERY intricate. Its INCREDIBLY intricate.

Indeed, one might say it's unnecessarily intricate, and in a way that plainly reveals its origins as a "good enough" kludgy solution totally unlike the intricacies of systems designed via rational methods.

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 15, 2010 3:36 PM

I'm inclined to take Phoenix00017 at face value, and it's a little disappointed to see him/her getting thoroughly Pharyngulated here.

I'm not crazy about the decision to pander to Creationist parents by meticulously leaving out any mention of evolution, but at the same time it appears the goal here was to teach about cellular biology, and they did a decent job of that. If the ID-ish overtones really were unintentional -- and again, I'm inclined to take Phoenix00017 at face value -- then I think that's more a result of the game makers being unfamiliar with the aggression and ruthlessness with which the YEC side is fighting the culture wars.

Basically, here's a guy who's not in this fight, and in the process of trying to stay out of the fight, fell prey to a bit of false balance. It's worthy of criticism, but it's unfortunate to see him or her so thoroughly Pharyngulated. There's a real "you're either with us or against us!" vibe going on here.

And no, I'm not concern trolling. The tenor of Pharyngula comments are what they are, and I know it ain't changing. I'm not even saying, "Hey, stop Pharyngulating the poor guy!" because I know nobody will, and in any case, that's kinda what we do here, right? I'm just saying, for me personally, I feel bad he or she is getting the Pharyngula treatment. The game's not that bad, and it looks like the ID pandering was mostly unintentional. FWIW.

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 3:39 PM

There aren't exactly tons of games that do evolution justice. They all turn out to be more like ID/creationism, because anyone playing a game needs to be able to DO something, not sit and watch a bunch of simulated natural processes unfold. I totally understand why it made sense to make the way you made it. It's the nature of game making.

But there were enough odd details that I got a little suspicious and so I stayed to watch the credits - and there was DeWitt as Biology advisor Then I found out Dembski promoted it the same day it was released. Why don't you ask which one of your scientific advisors told him about it. And who was it that recommended DeWitt anyway? Of all of the thousands of biologists in the country, including many at Wake Forest I am sure. Oh, it was Macosko, was it? Because of his "expertise in the finer points of cell biology".

I believe you. But I think you got played.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | July 15, 2010 3:40 PM

Ultimately, you can know the exact same science and have one person believe it was fate and another believe it was random chance guided by selection criteria.

True.

But that doesn't change the objective facts of the process. Ultimately, it is the beliefs that most closely match reality that are more true.

The earth still revolves around the sun, no matter how many people used to think otherwise. And life arose due to natural, stochastic processes, no matter how many people believe otherwise.

Posted by: pteryxx | July 15, 2010 3:43 PM

Phoenix @107:

MoonShark - Yeah, I figured you guys wouldn't like that phrase. That doesn't make it less true. It's a philosophy question, and people interpret the world around them differently. Ultimately, you can know the exact same science and have one person believe it was fate and another believe it was random chance guided by selection criteria. I'm sorry that me understanding how people think differently offends you. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

Actually, no, that *is* the topic. Censoring evolution because some parents and teachers would reject it *is* the problem here. Describing evolution as a system of belief instead of an evidence-supported theory *is* the problem.

Interesting how you decided those who believe in creationism shouldn't be offended by your game, but you're fine with it offending those who don't.

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 15, 2010 3:46 PM

jay.sweet - Fret no more and just enjoy the game. It is a belief-neutral game. :) I'm thrilled to hear you liked it!

Yeah, I had not seen your comments when I made the comment you are referring to. As I said later, I'm inclined to take you at face value.

I think the problem with trying to be "belief-neutral" here is that since once explanation is based in fact and has incredibly empirical support, and the other explanation is made-up crap that is being foisted on young children, being "neutral" is not actually being neutral -- if you catch my drift.

BUT, I also sympathize with your position here, and I think the intensity of criticism here is undeserved. Just to let you know, the comments section at Pharyngula has a reputation amongst the atheist community as being a bit rough... It's not even that "we're not all like this" -- some of us are "like this" here, but maybe not so much elsewhere! hahaha...

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 3:50 PM

Noturus - Thank you - that was the point I was trying, and apparently failing, at making. I'll grant you, I could actually watch a genetic algorithm go through evolution and learning and create something new, but most people don't have the patience or geek-level for that. There are actually some very cool games that use genetic algorithms for machine learning, which demonstrate the incredible power of mating, mutations, and selection criteria. But that's a very different kind of game.

Anyway, it's true that I tried to be neutral on this, and specifically not step on toes. I knew that we had a range of people of various beliefs working on it, but most of the decisions of game design were mine or my lead programmers. I truly can see how you interpreted it the way you did, but I am assuring you that it's simply not the case. I realize the game is hardly the bastion of evolutionary theory that you may have hoped it would turn out to be, but I'm thrilled to hear that a few teachers are interested in the game.

To those educators who have posted, we're looking into creating a downloadable packet with information and a printable lab for students to fill in while learning. Please feel free to email me at cellcraft at gmail dot com if you would like to make suggestions or give feedback for that process!

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 15, 2010 3:54 PM

Several people have piped up in this thread to either praise the game, or to disagree with PZ (or at least with what they incorrectly think PZ was saying). Far more, it seems to me, than in your typical Pharyngula thread. And this is a Pharyngulation?

Eh, maybe you're right. I disagree that nobody's been rude, but I guess the balance of comments seem to be much more understanding than I was seeing at first.

So there ya go, Phoenix00017, it's usually way worse! hhahahaha.... (I kid because I love you guys)

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 3:56 PM

PrudeHawkeye@112: "So how do you distinguish between a watered-down ID game and a pro-science game that had to make sacrifices in the name of gameplay?"

Something touched by the hand of Liberty University is probably fairly reliable!

PrudeHawkeye@112: "I understand why - ID is quite subversive and does try to sneak its way into the classrooms, but honestly, has ID ever been THIS sneaky? I think this is giving them a LOT of credit - they're subversive alright, but never good at subtlety."

Certainly, it would not be so surprising if people who were vigorously sneaky would work to be more so!

(It's not that "subtle".)

At this point, I suspect that the Phoenix00017 had reasonable intentions but allowed himself to be subtlety influenced by ID'ers.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 4:00 PM

I've been on internet forums before, so this isn't foreign to me. I work at Kongregate.com and was a community manager there for a while - what's new to me is the lack of name calling and the average length of the posts. :) Even though I'm getting railed at least a little here (I can dig the attacks on my arguments, it's the "you sound fishy" and "I'm not buying" stuff that's frustrating to deal with), this is definitely an interesting (and distracting!) discussion.

Apparently this was a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. My hope was that by omitting evolution entirely, I wouldn't offend either camp. It just wasn't the point of the game anyway, as some others have pointed out. My hope was to make a game that could help kids learn and get excited about science - with luck I'll be able to reach a few. I fully encourage any of you who are parents or teachers to fill in any gaps as you see fit. My main intent in posting here was to assure that there was no political/philosophical leaning to the game, even if that meant the game also had to jump past certain points.

In any case, I'd love to read up more on this site in general. It's intriguing to me to read both sides. While I know which camp I'm in, I'm not as well-read on it as I'd like to be, and I'd like to better be able to defend my beliefs. But again, I'm getting off topic. :)

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 4:00 PM

Agreed with pteryxx@117, thought I wouldn't say I'm offended so much as disappointed that a game with the lofty intentions of teaching some biology willfully omits the theory that is the exact cornerstone of the entire scientific field.

Sorry to go bold, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. Anthony, you accepted the grant for a game about teaching bio, on the condition that you leave out crucial details. As it stands most of the same information can be found on the singular wikipedia page for cell bio without any extra clicks.

Like I said, I enjoy the entertaining aspects and the nomenclature, and (particularly as a chem student) giving the formulas for glucose and peptides. But if you want to go the academic route (which the inclusion of a mini-encyclopedia seems to show), then do it right by including some bits on evolution and development.

Posted by: sphex | July 15, 2010 4:03 PM

I'm not really sure why I'm having to defend this - I've told you that it's not ID propaganda and I'm not sure what else you want from me.

Ummmm... evidence?

***rummages for popcorn***

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 4:06 PM

RPJohnston@118 "I never knew that the platypus was an ID mascot myself. The significance of the casting would probably be lost on the intended audience and most others as well. If you don't already know about ID and its platypus argument, you'll probably just be tickled by the funny creature-characters."

If the platypus actually has this significance, it's a dog whistle. It would indicate that the game was "safe" to give to children you did not want to be corrupted by "evolution".

Posted by: ritebrother | July 15, 2010 4:07 PM

MoonShark @129: Thanks for bringing this up again. I don't think Phoenix is getting the point about false equivalence. Saying there are "2 camps" suggests this is the case. Scientifically (and most good Philosophers would argue, philosophically), there is only one camp.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 4:07 PM

but I feel that people are being excessively paranoid about this.

Oh really? Crazed religious fanatics who fire scientists whenever they can, have been known to beat them up, and knifed one to death.

Devotees of religious cults based on hate with a major sacrament being lying, who are all xian Dominionists. Whose stated goal is to destroy the USA, set up a theocracy, and head on back to the Dark Ages.

There is a difference between being paranoid and being stupid. People collect Darwin awards for being stupid, although it is only given posthumously.

Nothing these trolls do is accidental. Setting up a subversive game is sort of wimpy for them but I guess you can't lie to secondary school kids and send death threats to scientists every day.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawl3-l5HKyNaNR7dph13YNNOJrNSfsV1jjw | July 15, 2010 4:08 PM

Retry...this time using preview...

Monckton tries to censor John Abraham
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-tries-to-censor-John-Abraham.html

St. Thomas University needs to understand the importance of Abraham's work. Hopefully they already do but if there is a flood of WUWT readers sending them angry emails, a reminder wouldn't hurt. Rather than flood the University with even more emails, the New Zealand website Hot Topic has created a Support John Abraham page http://hot-topic.co.nz/support-john-abraham/

Here, they propose that anyone who supports John Abraham's efforts to leave a comment with their name, location and academic affiliation (if any). Comments from academics are especially welcome.

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 15, 2010 4:12 PM

I've been on internet forums before, so this isn't foreign to me. I work at Kongregate.com and was a community manager there for a while - what's new to me is the lack of name calling and the average length of the posts. :) Even though I'm getting railed at least a little here

Yeah, the awesome thing about Pharyngula is that even when people are being assholes, they aren't being stupid assholes, like 99% of the rest of the internet :D BTW, you'll find a similarly high level of discourse on the majority of atheist/skeptic forums.

Posted by: jaranath | July 15, 2010 4:14 PM

Anthony: Thanks for showing up here. Now, sorry to be critical, but I'm having a hard time fully buying your story as well. Consider, for instance, your comments about molecular machines, the cell as a city, garbage trucks, etc. This is classic ID language...some of it even uses the same phrasing.

I agree that it's possible we're just suffering from our own hyperactive agency detectors, and yes, I'd already considered the issues game design presents and how that could add a design appearance. But given the circumstances, most especially the involvement of Macosko, I think we have good cause to be suspicious.

If you really didn't think this looked like ID, then I agree with others: You probably got played. Think back carefully over the course of this project. Just how much influence flowed from the ID creationists into your choices? Who was pushing to make this "neutral" toward evolution? Why do you suggest that involving a topic such as evolution, which is not controversial amongst Biology educators and academics, would threaten a grant to educate about Biology? Who used the molecular machines language in your conversations? Is it conceivable your advisors made sure this is the direction the project took?

Also, I apologize but must ask directly:
--do you agree with or support ID or other forms of creationism?

If not, then I strongly second your suggestion that you should read up on the cero-evo controversy. Go read up at TalkOrigins if nothing else, but I highly recommend reading more besides, here and elsewhere, like The Panda's Thumb, and just about anything deconstructing the Discovery Institute and the Wedge Strategy. If nothing else, this would help you better understand why we think you were used to make something subtly pushing ID memes.

Posted by: pteryxx | July 15, 2010 4:19 PM

but I feel that people are being excessively paranoid about this.

but,

We wanted to make a game that had a good chance of making it into classrooms and helping kids learn about and get excited about science. If we featured evolution in it, we'd be hit by waves of parents who want no part of it. The result is that kids wouldn't benefit from our work at all.

*sigh*

and we're the 'paranoid' ones.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 4:25 PM

jaranth - Thanks for the response and helpful suggestions. To answer a few things:

That quote was a paraphrasing of what I had been talking about. I didn't write the quote exactly, and it's possible Dr. Macosko did, but I signed off on it, because, as I said in an earlier post (that you likely missed because this thread is ridonkulously long now), I, on my own in high school, described the cell as analogous to a city. And it is, especially at the high school level. If ID phrasing was in there I see how it triggered your radar, but it doesn't make it less of a true statement. I don't think it implies ID or irreducible complexity - it's purely an analogy.

I don't think I got played because I genuinely see no ID teaching in the game. Yes, I didn't put in evolution. This is in much respect my fault - I don't like stepping on toes in general. But, more to the point, I was worried about the distribution potential of the game. The grant was in no way threatened, just the possible use of the result. Perhaps that perception was wrong of me, though again, that wasn't the intent of the game anyway. So, those are two reasons we didn't include evolution - one a crap reason, but the other (the fact that it wasn't the point of the game) is legit.

Dr. Macosko's expertise is molecular machines. Kinesin, dynein, etc. So yes, the language was used. As far as I know, motor proteins aren't science fiction or ID propaganda, and they also aren't even mentioned in the game.

Bluntly, no, I don't agree with ID. As I said in my first post, I'm an atheist. But it was never the intention of the game to teach about this in the first place. Maybe a future game can address it, but it simply wasn't the goal here.

Thank you for the reading material - I've read some TalkOrigins before, but hadn't heard of The Panda's Thumb. I'll add it to my list.

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 4:31 PM

PrudeHawkeye@130 "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Liberty U an Evangelical Christian university? Doesn't ID conflict with their literal interpretation of the Bible"

Arguing that certain sneaky/dishonest people can't be behind something because it would mean they were too sneaky/dishonest doesn't much sense.

"Intellegent design" is a bogus theory invented by people who believe in the "literal interpretation of the Bible" to attack evolution by sowing doubt.

You either deeply ignorant of the history of "intellegent design" or you are sneaky/dishonest.

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 4:35 PM

Upon hitting submit I realized that wasn't entirely fair to PrudeHawkeye; what I meant was that finding "fun" multimedia diversions rather than focusing on the beauty, usefulness, and the always-open-to-interpret-how-it-affects-us "meaning" of science is a disservice. But it's not clear that he's diverting. If not, my bad.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 4:37 PM

raven - it's the witch-hunts that make me hesitant to partiate much more in this forum. Attack the argument, destroy the logic. That's good stuff. The name calling (liars, trolls, etc.) is not productive and is purely flame bait.

In my philosophical debate forums I always set up a rule: this is a safe place for people, not ideas. Attacks on people devalue your credibility and make others less likely to respond with thoughtful, lucid replies to your arguments.

Anyway, he said he was teaching high school, not college.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 4:41 PM

it's the witch-hunts that make me hesitant to partiate much more in this forum.

you mean like this:

Upon hitting submit I realized that wasn't entirely fair to PrudeHawkeye

yes, burn the witch!

something tells me you're wearing a fake nose there, buddy.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 4:49 PM

raven - it's the witch-hunts that make me hesitant to partiate much more in this forum.

Take your ball and crawl back under your rock.

That is a good place for you.

I didn't read your posts so I can't say whether they were plausible or not.

Prudehawkeye looked like a standard fundie xian liar. We see them every day and they are generic.

High schools in some places are full of supposed science teachers who are creationists lying to kids with cult xianity. It is illegal and they occasionally get caught and fired like John Freshwater in Ohio. Far more often real HS science teachers get fired, harassed, or driven out for teaching real science.

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 15, 2010 4:54 PM

@raven And you're a paranoid twit. Go back to your window - a truck of creationists could show up any moment to set the flame.

I've been reading through the encyclopedia, and noticed this statement on chloroplasts (real-life):

The presence of both a membrane and DNA give support to the idea that chloroplasts were once independent bacteria, that evolved to form more complex cells in conjunction with other organelles (such as mitochondria).

Is this something that you forgot to remove?

I can see the points that others were making, insofar brief comments about evolution a la this example would be a nice addition to understanding the cell, without distracting from its mission.

However, I didn't find the descriptions of the other organelles to be particularly lacking sans evolution, and even for the chloroplast its inclusion wasn't necessary to understand its function.

My recommendation would be to include brief mentions when appropriate for depth of understanding, but that it isn't necessary to be a gameplay mechanic nor feature prominently (in a singular way) in the story.

Aside from that, my earlier criticisms still stand - it gives an awful sense of railroading, and the tutorial seems to last far too long. I would recommend either a rewrite to address this, or perhaps an expansion - the game currently can be treated as an introduction, whereas later chapters focus on more intricate cellular processes. The credits list Jeeves' status as unknown...perhaps there's more story to be had.

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 4:58 PM

Yeah I know kids like cartoons and have short attention spans and anthropomorphic characters and narratives can make it easier to keep a player involved.

Quoting myself because I want to add: It worked. I played the whole game because I wanted to know what weirdness would happen to Jeeves and the cell culture on "E4R1H".

That said, I don't think I'm really your audience. I know how to use a research database, organize a journal paper, and cite sources. Been in college for, well, too long. My purpose in playing was primarily entertainment; the science terminology was only a secondary reason to stick with it.

Just my experience, but it sounds like the opposite prioritization from what your aim was.

Anyway Anthony, even if you don't continue the science theme or focus on educating highschoolers, at least keep making games. In that particular sense, Cellcraft is novel and fun.

Posted by: hauntedchippy | July 15, 2010 5:13 PM

@PrudeHawkeye
Speaking also as an educator, I sympathise and largely agree with your comments.
Please ignore the juvenile name callers, you don't need to justify yourself to them.

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 5:21 PM

PrudeHawkeye@157 "I am being accused of...ignorant of ID."

The following statement is enough to make people think that...

PrudeHawkeye@130 "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Liberty U an Evangelical Christian university? Doesn't ID conflict with their literal interpretation of the Bible"

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 15, 2010 5:24 PM

Gotcha now troll. You are a creationist.

Ah, now there's he name-calling. Joe Bleau, can we officially call this a Pharyngulation now? ;)

Posted by: Ewan R | July 15, 2010 5:28 PM

mitochondrian

ouch

Posted by: PrudeHawkeye | July 15, 2010 5:34 PM

davep@164
I did use the caveat "correct me if I'm wrong".

I'd like to think I'm not ignorant of ID, which is why my question was aimed at the reconciliation of fundamentalist evangelical Christians and ID. Doesn't ID presuppose an old earth?

And yes, I understand that we're talking about groups that are capable of incredible feats of mental gymnastics.

Does Liberty U teach theistic evolution, ID, young-earth creationism, or flat earth creationism? I honestly don't know, and wondering if anyone does.

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 5:44 PM

Can we do an ISP comparison on Frog Inc. and Anthony? I have never been able to read a comment, digest it, and reply in under 3 minutes. But maybe that's just me.

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 5:53 PM

Guess I am just pathetically slow. :) Yes, sockpuppets are pretty commonly attempted by people but they get found out pretty quickly I think.

Posted by: Dania | July 15, 2010 5:59 PM

Does Liberty U teach theistic evolution, ID, young-earth creationism, or flat earth creationism? I honestly don't know, and wondering if anyone does.

They teach young-earth creationism. They work with Answers in Genesis.

I really don't think having anyone from there as a science advisor is a good idea.

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 6:00 PM

PrudeHawkeye@170 "I did use the caveat "correct me if I'm wrong". I'd like to think I'm not ignorant of ID, which is why my question was aimed at the reconciliation of fundamentalist evangelical Christians and ID. Doesn't ID presuppose an old earth?"

The basic motivation of "intelligent design" is to present an alternative "theory" to evolution that appears to be "serious". It really just propaganda to push a christian anti-evolution agenda in the name of "balance" and to "teach the controversy".

That is, the "fundi christians" behind it explicitly removed biblical references to make it easier to sell as a "legitmate" "scientific" "theory".

The "Pandas and People" controversy is a good illustration of the lie behind "intellegent design".

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 6:03 PM

Well, that was only 5 minutes response time by you. :) Also, like I said, I used to be a community manager for a large gaming forum, so I got pretty quick at replies almost out of necessity.

I guess we do see sockpuppets over there too though, so I shouldn't be surprised. I just have never been accused of having/being one before. I guess that comes with the territory of showing up new at a site and talking about a controversial topic, haha. :)

Posted by: pteryxx | July 15, 2010 6:07 PM

requoting PrudeHawkeye @130:

I think people overestimate most freshman biology students a bit. In my experience, subtlety is NOT something they pick up on that much, and I think we're being excessively paranoid here.

People do pick up subtle bias, reinforcement, and the absence of alternative viewpoints. If they didn't, just to give a particularly well-documented example, there'd be much less sexism in supposedly enlightened communities such as this one.

The way I see it, teaching biology while avoiding any mention of evolution is a variant of silencing, an intellectual version of Don't Ask Don't Tell. It reinforces evolution as socially unacceptable when it's just a fact of life. Why should the burden be on biologists to pretend facts don't exist, instead of letting teaching materials adhere to the truth? Why should we lie to protect any group's personal beliefs?

Students ask me how I can possibly believe in evolution when I seem like a decent normal person. Silencing any mention of evolution keeps it scary and foreign, and lets civilians go on believing that "normal" people don't think that way. Most of the arguments on the ground don't have to do with flagella or clotting cascades, but with the assumption that evolution, like homosexuality, or contraception, is something Nice People don't talk about. And denial's gotten us sooo far with those other issues.

PrudeHawkeye @169 (while I was afk:)

The students who I'm really trying to reach are the ones who are going to switch off as soon as they hear the word, so I have to be judicious about when I bring it up, and when I do, to do a damn fine job of driving it home.

Very true, and I'm glad to commend you for the customized approach... I also agree that CellCraft is a fine tool for learning organelles, and one that fills a definite need. I just feel strongly that natural selection or evolution should be mentioned where they're mentioned and let the discussions grow from that; along with my concern that most teachers, unlike you, will simply not deal with the topic at all. That's why I feel that CellCraft's avoidance is such a problem.

As a teacher of biology on the front lines, do you think it's possible for CellCraft to mention evolution in context at all, without the intervention of a dedicated teacher such as yourself?

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 6:15 PM

azinyk - Thanks for you comments. A few replies:

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you actually can turn mitochondria on and off as you need to try to affect the use/storage of glucose. There's a "disable" command when you click on one.

It's true things would be automated, and we made an effort to automate as much as possible while still having the player interact. There's a balance between automation and interactivity that must be achieved. Perhaps we missed a bit in your opinion, but that balance was our goal.

We definitely do have some simplifications, but these became necessary. For example, originally we wanted to have mitosis and necrosis, and have a sense of cell population that you would interact with. As it was, the game took a year to make and we barely stayed in budget - we simply had to cut certain features and decide what was important. It's a sad thing that every game designer must do at some point. Perhaps in a sequel!

The robot does come across as evil early on (I've seen a lot of 'I hate Jeeves' comments that amuse me), but the intent was for him to turn out to be more of a Mr. Miyagi character, testing the cells harshly to make sure they would be okay on their own.

Posted by: davep | July 15, 2010 6:16 PM

Phoenix00017 is still ignoring the elephant in the room.

An association with Liberty University makes this less than reputable. It's a weird source of information and one that isn't likely to be random.

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 15, 2010 6:17 PM

For starters, the cell doesn't do anything automatically, whereas in reality, the cell does everything automatically.

In real life, the "player" doesn't exist. This would just be a movie if modeled perfectly on real life.

The notion of having a single cell rather than a population is frankly idiotic: you have a virus attack on almost every level, but forget about beating it with diversity in the population.

An expansion, however, could focus on population mechanics, which would also address your first concern - it would be impossible for a player to direct hundreds of cells at once, so most of their functions would need to be automatic.

...And I think you're reading too much into the robot...

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 6:40 PM

I don't believe anything these guys are saying. I did a little web surfing and it looks worse, the more one googles.

It's all there.

1. Creationists on the design team.

2. Association with Liberty university, a xian Dominionist front dedicated to destroying the US and heading on back to the Dark Ages. C'mon, there are close to a million biologists of one type or another in the USA and way less than 1% are creationists. You have to look in the swamps of academia like Liberty to find them.

3. Neutral towards evolution? Oh really? Are you neutral towards Heliocentrism or the Flat Earth too?

4. General ignorance or outright denial of any knowledge of what has been going on in our society for the last 3 decades.

My prediction. Their next game will be WITCH HUNT!!! It will be about all the True Xians rounding up those evil evolutionists to make the world safe for the 6,000 year old earth. It will also be a huge seller. Evolution is a bit hard to understand. But hate is always easy to understand.

PS Maybe this Phoenix guy is telling the truth about being an atheist. So what? So he sold out for a few bucks. We all have to eat. Most of us manage that with some standards and without helping slime molds.

I've seen enough. It all comes out in the wash sooner or later. In this case, it is sooner. I wouldn't touch anything out of Liberty university.

Posted by: echidna | July 15, 2010 6:52 PM

Phoenix00017 and PrudeHawkeye,

Please be aware that many of the posters here are not from the US.
"Freshman" and "College" are ambiguous terms.

"College" does not automatically refer to tertiary education elsewhere (Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne is a prestigious girl's secondary school). Those of us outside of the US need to translate "freshman class" to our own systems - for me it means Year 9, assuming that I picked up the context as secondary education, because we usually only hear the term referring to the first year of tertiary studies.

The fact that evolution is filtered out of textbooks and educational materials in the US simply to avoid conflict is a huge problem, and one that you seem to accept as "normal" all too readily.

You abrogated part of your responsibility to the principles of scientific education, Phoenix00017, by accepting the false premise that evolution is better not made explicit for the sake of harmony with religious notions, even if you can rationalise it away. It should never have been part of your reasoning. Allowing ID conmen to influence you was a mistake. You will have given far more ground than you realise.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 7:01 PM

PS Maybe this Phoenix guy is telling the truth about being an atheist. So what? So he sold out for a few bucks.

Phoenix reminds me of Michael Edmondson...

just for fun:

http://vimeo.com/7731747

Posted by: MoonShark | July 15, 2010 7:11 PM

Ouch, Anthony got nailed by PZ using his own forum!

Lemme quote:

I spoke with Jed about this today and he had a fantastic idea that I think opens up a lot of potential for realism, some magic hand-waving over our creative license

Hand-waving yields realism? Wow, that's... well to say that's a problem is understatement.

All of a sudden, we get to cast the player as a mad scientist.

Well that's a perfectly fine premise for a game... but then you can't turn around and pass if off as actual science.

This kinds pisses me off now after trying to be relatively sympathetic. If they wanted a story about "frankencells", they could have gone the Craig Venter route and had the ingame scientists tinker and replace genes that in turn utilize the cells' own machinery to produce organelles.

Instead, nope, they got plopped in deus ex machina, and all mention of evolution got the big crude axe. Fuck.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | July 15, 2010 7:19 PM

I understand the point of not having evolution in the game. I play CivIV and make decisions like "do I research pottery or animal husbandry next?" This is as artificial as CellCraft's platypuses.

My concern is the total lack of evolution in the game notes. Explaining why something happens in real cells would require some mention of evolution.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 7:58 PM

books.google.com/books?isbn=0195157427...Skeptic's Dictionary and Refuge: Mass Media Bunk The lecturer is Jed C. Macosko, a warrior for the Discovery Institute (DI), ..... Scientific American's "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" by John Rennie. ...

Macosko is a "warrior" for the Dishonesty Institute, a well known and rather disreputable xian Dominionist creationist front.

These guys are busted.

Phoenix is either an unwitting dupe, a witting dupe, a fool, or outright lying. Fronting for fundies, good Cthulhu, how desperate do people have to be for money. Don't they have food stamps or food banks where he lives?

Been surfing the web, the more one looks, the more busted they are. Which is why they crawled back under their rocks.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 8:28 PM

Liberty University & the Natural History Museum « The Sensuous ... Mar 10, 2010 ... David DeWitt, a Liberty University biology professor, opens his classes with a prayer, .... Discovery Institute: Creationist “Peer-Review” ...

David DeWitt, a Liberty University biology professor, opens his classes with a prayer,

Oh. Did anyone mention that ID isn't religious?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 8:38 PM

hat seems to be ID's modus operandi these days -- viral marketing of the ID message as opposed to, say, useful scientific breakthroughs.

these days?

that's all it ever was, or even was intended to be.

ID has always been PR. That's why, if you look at the DI budget, it all goes for salaries for PR guys.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 8:56 PM

I'm really not sure how to respond. I feel confident that I wasn't played, even retrospectively looking at conversations. Drs. Macosko and DeWitt offered professional advising on the mechanics of the cell and allowed me to have freedom in creating the game - and in fact I made numerous changes to the original design of it so that it would be more fun to play.

If they provided me with factually inaccurate data, let me know. That would be a problem and need to be fixed. But as far I'm aware, this is not the case. I don't think you can claim that they don't know anything about cellular biology - they clearly do. Obviously they differ in certain points, but when those points aren't present in the game at all then where's the harm?

I'm sure many of you are determined to think that anything a creationist touches is poison. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I'd ask you to look at the game, not who's behind it, to see what's really there.

Let's say in the worst case I was played. Let's say they talked me out of using evolution (which I maintain isn't true, but for the sake of argument, let's go with it). Does that make the resulting game not accurate? Please try to remember the intention of the game is to teach the function of the organelles - and in that regard I think the game is a success. Maybe it could have done more, but I don't understand dismissing the game just because it has a narrower focus.

I will reply to one of raven's critiques:

3. Neutral towards evolution? Oh really? Are you neutral towards Heliocentrism or the Flat Earth too?

If I'm creating a game to teach geography of the United States, I would be neutral towards the shape of the Earth. It's not within the scope of what I'm teaching. That's how it worked here too. We started out looking at incorporating evolution, but it didn't make sense for the scope of the game, so we dropped it.

I'm sure I could go on repeating my arguments and defending myself, and we'd keep going in circles. It's sad that even in skeptic forums internet arguments still always seem to end (if they ever do) with one side having to walk off. I hate to be that side, but seeing as I'm the outsider, outnumbered, and despite knowing the facts myself I'm still being called a liar and a putz. I'm at a loss for how to continue. Sigh...

Posted by: quantheory | July 15, 2010 9:00 PM

I have to say, I played through this game without really being bothered by any ID-related implications at all (and I've been told that I tend to be too sensitive about such things, whatever that means). Between the fact that we are working to build synthetic cells now, the focus on the workings of the cell rather than the "design" process, the fact that the designers in the game seem to be using pre-existing living parts to build the cell (of unspecified origin), and the really silly attitude the game takes towards the design process, I didn't see much of an ID agenda that you could make out of it. The two parts of the game that I thought were silly were that the robot builds viruses to attack the cell instead of using natural ones, and the issue where the platypus origin story plays into creationist propaganda.

Overall, however, I don't think most people would notice any strong ID message unless they are already steeped in that sort of propaganda one way or another. I do have some problems with the oversimplification of the cell in this game, but every educational tool in the genre has that problem.

Posted by: Ñbrevu | July 15, 2010 9:06 PM

I think PZ has gone a little too far with this. Maybe because I've always liked videogames, including the educational ones. PZ would have preferred to have squids instead of platypi and this might be making him a little angry ;).

I played the first three levels and found the game interesting, because it describes many things that happen in a cell which I didn't know about (I'm not a biologist and my knowledge is very limited). Yes, it's not like a real cell, because a real cell doesn't have someone pointing and clicking to its functions, but, hey, that's the game part. Just like Spore (which I haven't actually played); it's not intended to hint that "goddidit", it just gives you some "godly" powers to make the game actually fun; purely studying evolution would consist on just observing and wouldn't be fun. I don't want to sound offensive, but I'm starting to wonder if critics have played any educational game before this. Most kids wouldn't notice the shallow resemblances with creationism, because they will interpret them as part of the game.

"I'd be the first to torpedo this game if I caught a whiff of creationism/ID in it, but its just not really there. Maybe there's a residue of it, as evidenced by its lack of mentioning evolution, but that's a small crime of omission, if anything."
Completely agree.

"Any kid with a creationist "teacher" is screwed anyway, because the lies come whether or not good questions are asked."
Yes! The thing is, in good hands this game may be a reasonable teaching tool. However, I dislike the idea of "dismissing evolution because it wouldn't be neutral". The neutral approaching would have been to teach just the facts, and evolution would necessarily follow.

Posted by: foehammer | July 15, 2010 9:16 PM

#211:

How was Phoenix lying? Do show where. As far as I can tell, he's been quite honest and he's answered pretty much every question levied at him, in spite of the rudeness.

I played the game. And I keep up with this public debate - actually, it's what got me interested in science in the first place. On one side, we've got science and observable reality. The other, fairy tales. I found it interesting that people equalize these.

Anyway, having played the game, I really didn't see anything that pointed straight at ID. Or even awkwardly at it. I didn't play all the way through, granted, but others have and have come to a similar conclusion. As PrudeHawkeye noted, DI did a pretty shitty job pushing ID in this case. I even read PZ's post before going to the game, so I was looking out for the ID references - there just weren't any that couldn't be attributed to just making a plot that works in a medium that's generally tough to deal with educationally - a flash game.

Personally, I found the platypi quite excellent.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 9:23 PM

Tom Willis:

Clearly then, "evolutionists should not be allowed to roam free in the land." All that remains for us to discuss is "What should be done with evolutionists?" For the purposes of this essay, I will ignore the minor issue of Western-style jurisprudence and merely mention possible solutions to the "evolutionism problem," leaving the legal details to others:

Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.

Tom Willis is a creationist leader in Kansas. He doesn't want a witch hunt, he takes his inspiration from modern times. His Final Solution is to herd evolutionists into slave labor camps and work them to death.

Truth is a lie. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Fundies make no secret about what sort of world they want. It doesn't include me. It doesn't include you either.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 9:29 PM

foehammer:

How was Phoenix lying?

Read the thread. Find a third grader to read it to you if you must. I can't fix illiteracy through an internet connection.

BTW, they knew this reaction was going to happen. It's obvious. They were already for damage control. And they really didn't care about being found out.

We were going to find out. We know.

Posted by: foehammer | July 15, 2010 9:35 PM

#213

I corrected my typo in a subsequent post. Does it make a little more sense now?

And I'm anything but an apologist for religion. That's probably among the worst insults you could've levied, next to calling me a republican (my friends do it as a joke, it's mean).

I can't fully articulate my dislike of religion, but I'll put it like this. Religion hinders the progress of humankind, such that it is one of the bigger hindrances to reaching our potential. Put simply, we can't create humankind's successors, or do any meaningful improvement to our own kind, if we're too busy claiming the pond (the universe) was made for us, specifically even though we're dirty terrible sinners.

Religion is wrong, and not just factually. It's morally wrong - it chains people's thoughts and gives bigots intellectual housing. I would gladly see (and hope to see) the end of religion within my lifetime.

Perhaps I am too trustworthy - maybe there is malice in what Phoenix says. But I've read pretty much every post in this thread. I've played the game in question, I've thought over what was said by both the proponents of PZ's line of reasoning and PrudishHawk's, and I've come to my own conclusion - properly utilized, regardless of who inspired the game, regardless of the motives of the makers of said game, CellCraft itself, as it's own game, looks to me like it would be an excellent learning tool.

I remember one of my own biology teachers showing us a website and having us fill out forms after listening to a monotone speaker talk about cells. I remember nothing of it.

I played CellCraft for like fifteen minutes, and I remember more than I did than what I remember from that hour and a half long biology lesson.

It's a useful tool in it's own right. What if at the bottom, the makers of the game were from AwesomeHarvard-Type School of Excellence, and were proactive atheists - would this change your view of the game?

If so, then take the game as it's own. Forget the authors, forget the craptastic Liberty University, and seriously consider the game's potential by it's own content.

I'm really not sure how I could make my opinion more clear on this.

Posted by: RobertL | July 15, 2010 9:55 PM

It's been interesting reading this topic, from the POV of arriving 200 posts after the event.

I've got nothing to add except to say that:

I've seen a platypus in the wild! In fact, a pair of them. At Eungella National Park in northern Queensland.

Cute little critters!

That is all. Continue with the rancour.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | July 15, 2010 10:03 PM

I only have that one question - why were those two chosen as the science advisors for this game?

Posted by: foehammer | July 15, 2010 10:08 PM

#221: You best be trollin'.

Posted by: raven | July 15, 2010 10:17 PM

And it doesn't help that you deem creationists as "lunatics."

Why not. They are. That is only pathetic. They are also evil religious fanatics intent on destroying the USA and heading back to the Dark Ages. It's not a secret, they say so often.

We really wish they would just stay under their rocks and tell their lies to each other and oppress each other. They have other plans though.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 10:23 PM

First off...

Secondly - raven. Dude. I can't tell if you're just trolling for fun or actually believe these things, but you sound like a raving lunatic. I'm sorry to resort to a sort of name calling, but I can't really express it any other way.

I keep telling myself that you must be kidding. I'm really being extremely honest in this entire conversation. I'm not entirely sure how to prove it to you...I suppose I could link to my posts in the religion threads on my philosophy forum. I was more agnostic then, and searching for truth, whatever it may be. But I think it's clear that I was leaning towards atheism, and at this point and even farther in that direction. I'm still learning and researching, but I do identify as atheist.

I understand the complaints of many people here. While I disagree with the crime of omission argument, I understand the point, and definitely understand the frustration that it is a debate at all. I made my decision to limit the scope of the game and to not step on toes. Perhaps that makes me spineless, perhaps pragmatic. I'm not a liar, and you're seriously hurting your credibility as a thinker, raven. I'm happy to see that other people in this forum understand that too.

In any case, thanks again to everyone for commenting, whether you agreed with me or not. It was great to learn about your objections, to hear your advice and suggestions, and in some cases to connect directly with you to talk about the future of the game. I'm a forum whore, so I'll likely check back in the morning. Hopefully the thread won't be 400 posts long by then... Have a good night everyone!

Posted by: echidna | July 15, 2010 10:26 PM

phoenix @207:

Drs. Macosko and DeWitt offered professional advising on the mechanics of the cell and allowed me to have freedom in creating the game - and in fact I made numerous changes to the original design of it so that it would be more fun to play.

Smoking gun right there - so who was running the show? This game was designed by creationists, for creationists. I thought initially that the programmers were conned, but I don't think so any more.

The programmers didn't choose Macosko and DeWitt for their biology expertise - this was set up to be a creationist tool from start to finish - designed to marginalise evolution in the teaching of biology, including ID memes as you go.

Anything that normalises the idea that evolution is too controversial for high school biology classes is a bad thing. A lie.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 10:35 PM

Am I allowed to point out the amusing coincidence that a guy with the name echidna is mocking me for including ID memes like the platypus? ;-)

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 10:43 PM

raven, honestly, you're just as scary as any religious fundamentalist. You're determined that your view is correct and refusing to listen to rational argument and evidence. I give up - I'm clearly not getting through to you, or you're just trolling me and I'm being dense and missing it. Either way, I'm done trying to talk to you.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 15, 2010 10:46 PM

All you have left now are lies and insults.

luls

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | July 15, 2010 10:49 PM

Unfortunately, Phoenix00017, you were played. You just don't know it because you don't know the science well enough. You stated that "We knew that we didn't all agree about evolution, creation, etc., but it didn't matter - we wanted to teach about the science." No, evolution IS the science when it comes to how cells work. The fact that it was left out of the game might seem ok at a cursory glance, but to repeat echidna, "Anything that normalises the idea that evolution is too controversial for high school biology classes is a bad thing." It's like making a game about rainbows and specifically leaving out purple, because a lot of people don't like purple and get very mad when it's discussed. Sure, your game is entirely competent when it talks about red and yellow and green, but it gets a little dicey on the blue, and it in fact doesn't really teach what rainbows are. It passively reinforces the idea that purple is Not To Be Talked About because it is Controversial and might not actually exist. It's incomplete, but it's incomplete in a particularly insidious way for a glaringly obvious reason.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 10:59 PM

Glen - I'll say upfront that I don't know my biology. High school biology is the limit of my formal schooling in the subject. That's why I had advisors. If they turned out to mislead me, well, I suppose that was my error. That fact that no one has pointed out any gross scientific inaccuracies in the game suggests that what they advised me on was actually accurate.

In the worst case, they may have steered me away from evolution. It's not my recollection of how it happened, but I don't remember the exact conversations. I do still maintain that it was the right decision. Until schools universally agree to teach evolution, putting it into a tool like this will limit the audience. I was attempting to reach a broad audience, and the gameplay wasn't working well anyway, and so I cut it. If I can later devise a game to really show evolution, and perhaps just that part, then I'd happily do so.

I also would like to retract, or at least modify, some of my statements, because you made a good point. I said "Ultimately, you can know the exact same science and have one person believe it was fate and another believe it was random chance guided by selection criteria."

I see your point - that's really not a valid statement. Either it was random or it wasn't, and either evidence points in one direction, or isn't present at all.

I am not a biologist, I do not know what are considered as accepted theories of abiogenesis. Is the RNA world considered scientific fact? I was under the (perhaps false) impression that it was one of many theories. Do we know the actual source of abiogenesis, or would I have had to have made some leaps of faith to represent the RNA world? Please, point me to some sources if I'm wrong on this.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | July 15, 2010 11:08 PM

I agree that you were well within your rights to scrap the evolutionary ideas for the gameplay itself, and that could well have been the absolute best move for the game. But if there were side explanations about each organelle, that would have been a good spot to throw in evolutionary ideas; as mentioned above, why mitochondria divide independently rather than being synthesized by the cell, for example. And it's not that you personally should have known better than to be hoodwinked, or that anyone is blaming you for it. I think what you're seeing is not complaints that it's a terrible game, but frustration that it's this close to being fantastic yet got undercut by someone with a very specific agenda.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | July 15, 2010 11:11 PM

Just because someone got conned does not mean they share the con-artist's ideology. Phoenix needs to talk with some actual science educators and learn more about the field. When he shows up with a game model of population dispersal after Noah's Ark, I'll conclude that he's a crazo. Until then, I think he got conned.

Also, it says a lot to me that he's still here hashing it out with some harsh critics. Where are the Liberty U morons who were supposed to be the "experts" here?

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 11:13 PM

There are around 1 million bioscience people in the USA. Very few are creationists, less than 1%. It may even be as low as a few dozen, almost all at bible colleges. How is it that Phoenix managed to find out of that pool, two hardcore, bug eyed creationist biologists?

Posted by: Noturus | July 15, 2010 11:20 PM

From the press release:

Pecorella, 25, met the age requirement for the MacArthur Foundation’s Young Innovators Award category. He graduated in 2004, earned a Master of Arts in mathematics degree from Wake Forest in 2006, and now resides in Durham, N.C. Macosko and Shtridelman, who graduated in 2007 and works with him as a research associate, approached Pecorella last fall about being the project leader.

“Anthony was our best chance of winning this highly sought-after award,” Macosko recalled. “His expertise and connections in the gaming industry were crucial to our success.”

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 11:22 PM

I agree that you were well within your rights to scrap the evolutionary ideas for the gameplay itself, and that could well have been the absolute best move for the game.

I'm still not buying this argument. This game was NOT supposed to be for entertainment, but educational usage. Hence, the McArthur grant.

why abandon half the educational value?

I'm not buying the "gameplay is better without it" meme.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | July 15, 2010 11:22 PM

I suspect Anthony will turn over the complaints, but that they're too cowardly to come here to take the heat. Also I suspect he's taking notes and will never ever consider working with them again.

Or he could be working on that population dispersal Noah's Ark project. Hope not, though.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 15, 2010 11:25 PM

Dr. Jed Macosko at Wake Forest University

Bah fuck. That's in my home town. Yes it's a baptist school but it has a great medical university.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 11:25 PM

I'll say upfront that I don't know my biology. High school biology is the limit of my formal schooling in the subject. That's why I had advisors. If they turned out to mislead me, well, I suppose that was my error. That fact that no one has pointed out any gross scientific inaccuracies in the game suggests that what they advised me on was actually accurate.
...In the worst case, they may have steered me away from evolution.

Sorry, but as they say, ignorance is no excuse.

ANYBODY could have done better, even someone with a high-school level understanding of biology. In fact, Ken Miller is MUCH better known as an expert on cell biology than either of these clowns.

These guys didn't even need to STEER you away from the evolutionary parts of cell biology, they probably could figure out right away they didn't even need to bother.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 11:30 PM

I don't remember relativity coming up in high school physics.

*headdesk*

where did you grow up again?

hell, relativity was covered decently even when I was in high school, and that was back in the late 70's/early 80's.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 15, 2010 11:47 PM

Also, a quick defense of the gameplay decision to cut evolution.

Part of the problem is that, from an interactive standpoint, the early evolution is pretty boring. It's amazing what happens, but trying to put that in the hands of the player was difficult, especially when we're trying to scale up to the level of the cell eventually.

If you look at the game now, the first few levels are almost entirely tutorial and very dense with text. It's already bordering on boring hand-holding until you get to later levels, and, at least at this point, I don't know how it would work to do the evolution of each organelle prior to letting the player use it.

I understand your critiques, but please try to consider that I approached this from a game design perspective. Those who play games among the commenters seem to understand this - you have to give the player something fun to do. Perhaps I could have developed some sort of micro-world simulation, but that's an entirely different engine to develop - we simply didn't have the resources.

So alas, things had to get cut. The evolution portion wasn't flowing well and didn't seem to be fun to play. It also was going to extend the scope of the game beyond what we could do. We already cut lots of features even from this simplified cell view. Heck, mitosis, apoptosis, cilia, flagella, basal bodies, microtubules, actin fibers, blebbing, and even other cells in the colony were all of these were developed to some level or another and got cut due to time and scope constraints. I'm not a magician and I don't have infinite funding. I had to make cuts, and evolution just wasn't making sense for what I wanted to teach and what I wanted to be able to play and have fun with. That's really all I can say - I'm not sure what else I can explain. :/

Posted by: Aquaria | July 15, 2010 11:50 PM

We had to draw a line somewhere. Clearly you guys aren't happy with where we chose to draw the line, but it wasn't clear to me where to start if not from the beginning.

Perhaps we can change that, though I suspect it wouldn't do anything to change the minds of most people in this thread.

Oh, FFS--are you sure you're not a Xian? You play the persecution card like one.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 15, 2010 11:52 PM

I uh...I don't remember relativity coming up in high school physics. You have to draw lines somewhere and decide where the curriculum ends. I think high school might be a lot simpler than you remember.

Ichthyic got to it first, but yes, high school (a religious one, I might add) physics definitely included relativity for me. We got into Einstein's equations to some extent, even somewhat into how they were derived.

Yes, I'm afraid that I would not think much of a high school physics course that did not include relativity.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Orange Utan, Librarian of Death | July 15, 2010 11:57 PM

@Phoenix00017,

You mentioned a grant for funding the development. Where/who did the grant come from?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 15, 2010 11:59 PM

My apologies if relativity is in fact in the standard high school curriculum and I was just unaware of it.

stop apologizing... and please, do yourself a favor and don't pick a physics crank if you decide to do some game involving educating people about quantum mechanics, or a flat earther if you decide to do geography, or another creationist if you decide to do geology...

If you're going to rely on experts for advice, i dunno, you might want to actually, you know SPEND 5 MINUTES checking out who actually IS an expert the next time you think about doing an educational game.

I mean, I myself might think of people to consult that actually write textbooks on the subject, at least.

Ken Miller would not have been a bad choice, for sure.

(totally OT sidenote for those who see me knocking Miller for his religious viewpoints and poor theology - SEE? I have no problem with Miller when it comes to be an expert on evolution and cell biology. :P )

You might be an excellent programmer, but you appear to be a lousy judge of how to find an expert in any given field.

Posted by: raven | July 16, 2010 12:08 AM

The notion of reaching a wider audience because evolution is controversial is the lie that you have bought into.

True, evolution isn't controversial in science and hasn't been for at least a century. This is a standard lie of creationists.

99% of all biologists accept evolution. The few who don't like Macosko and Dewitt freely admit that they don't on religious grounds.

About the only place it is controversial is among xians. The majority of xians worldwide don't have a problem with it. The ones who do are cults based in the south central USA.

I'm not really buying Phoenix's excuses about being ignorant. All this is easy to look up on the internet in a few minutes. It's simple stuff and widely known.

I suppose at best he needed the money. We all have to eat, after all. At worst the usual, blind religious fanaticism.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 12:15 AM

Or people who aren't biologists.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 12:20 AM

for me, I could be satisfied at this point if you could admit to making poor choices in who you consulted, and saying you would do a better job next time.

or hell, even coming HERE *gasp* to ask our advice on who might be a good choice to consult in a given field of biology, if you didn't want to bother doing the work to figure that out yourself.

I know for a fact that there even have been others here (including myself!) that have actually thought about creating educational games involving evolution or ecology before.

In fact... now that I know McArthur is back in the business of handing out grants for this stuff...

I should check out some old sources and see if the interest in general has picked up again.

Why should creationists be getting paid to consult on actual science issues, when REAL scientists could be, eh?

*gears turning in head*

yes.....

Posted by: Ellie | July 16, 2010 12:22 AM

Just a thought, I haven't played the game but having read through the comments here (or as many as I could anyway), wouldn't it hurt the makers of this game the most if it was actually used to teach evolution?

There seems to be a consensus both that it was most likely set up from the start as ID propaganda and that it is a good game with a lot of good biology in it that can be used to educate children. Isn't it better to use it as a way to tackle the insidious ID head on than to censor it out?

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 16, 2010 12:24 AM

gdh - I explained this earlier. I know it's a long thread, but I don't want to be retyping everything. Sorry. :/

Ichthyic - From a gameplay perspective, you have to introduce new elements over time. You can't just start with a full cell. We needed a way to introduce them one by one. It seemed natural to have a scientist splicing them in as a way of bringing in new concepts as needed throughout the course of the game. Yes, I can see how that can be interpreted as an ID philosophy (though really only if you're looking for it), but if you look at almost any real time strategy game you'll find this is how gameplay works in most cases. You start out with only a few buildings/units and eventually gain access to newer ones over time.

Posted by: echidna | July 16, 2010 12:30 AM

Echidna, I was backed by a teacher earlier in this thread who said he has to tread carefully when teaching about evolution. Just because the Supreme Court backed it doesn't mean that it's practical to teach.

Evolution is included in the SAT's. Of course it's practical to teach - whether some religious people like it or not. The USA cannot afford to let delusional religious people promote ignorance to this extent. You, as a writer of educational science programs, have an obligation to the goals of education, not to pander to religious sensitivities.

Face it- you were recruited by ID proponents for their purposes. You fell in line, for whatever reasons.

You have a lot of potential - you have the chance to learn from this, and not be suckered again. You have a whole lifetime ahead of you - you do not owe these conmen your allegiance.

Posted by: 5acos(phi/2) | July 16, 2010 12:36 AM

I finished the game a few days before this post came up. Kinda saw this coming. :/

For whatever it's worth, this game has been very educational for me in terms of organelle functions. My high school biology classes were little more than boring exercises in rote learning, and I would have paid more attention had games like this existed 10 years ago.

And about the debate, well... I'm afraid I have to side with the makers of the game, for a few reasons:

1. I live in a place where the creationists have no presence and their manufactroversy has no relevance - I'm half a world away from the US and its theology-driven political mess. I also grew up (and grew out of) a religion without any creation story - nothing to contradict scientific facts about evolution. So if science textbooks tell me evolution is true, the same way they tell me that F=ma or that it takes 500-ish seconds for the Sun's light to reach Earth, then it is true as far as I'm concerned.

2. I've played other "educational" games which throw scientific accuracy out the window in favor of entertainment and very few accurate lessons, and they're fine. I could usually tell which parts are factual and which are spin-offs, and if not, I could just hold the whole thing as provisional since it's "just a game". I don't believe it's possible to make a game (or documentary, etc.) more fun than real science while being as accurate and comprehensive. If you think otherwise, I'd like to see a practical suggestion.

3. CellCraft doesn't take its own storyline seriously, and while it's not compatible with evolution, it's also not exactly compatible with popular creation mythologies. Why so serious, then?

In other words, the negative reactions would have baffled me, but I've been reading these blogs for a while and I kinda know where you're coming from, though raven's attitude still scares me (assuming he/she is serious)

That said, I agree that the game makers could have been more cautious of whom they work with (or work for). So to the creators (heh) of CellCraft: I think you've done a good job, just be more careful next time, okay? :)

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 16, 2010 12:41 AM

Well, we're sort of in an agree to disagree situation. Or perhaps you guys don't agree, but I really don't have the time to continue discussing this forever. The game is done, and I stand behind my gameplay decisions.

I appreciate you all taking the time to express your concerns and I've learned a lot today. But I also have to move on and get back to being productive and making games. I'll certainly take a lot of this into consideration (except raven - he's a loon!) as I move forward. I think in some cases some of you are reading too much into it, but I also know now to at least be vigilant with who I work with. Thanks everyone.

I'll check back tomorrow, but I'm going to do my best to tear myself away from this intriguing yet addicting conversation. I have an entirely non-educational game that I'm working on in the meantime, and I'm looking forward to getting back to it! :)

Posted by: raven | July 16, 2010 12:50 AM

I'll certainly take a lot of this into consideration (except raven - he's a loon!) as I move forward.

Avoid the creationist game CellCrafter. Your excuses, frequent pleadings of ignorance, and evasions were typical of people trying to hide.

How does it feel to work with people whose stated goal is to destroy our society? Never mind, you don't have an answer.

And you aren't important. We know the story now.

The important point. Avoid CellCrafter, the creationist designed game. Information travels fast on the internet and creationists aren't well liked in many places. They hate science and scientists don't much care for that or them either.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 12:56 AM

With the origin of the organelles, and especially of their functions, although some processes like mitosis would begin rather earlier.

Just to clarify, mitosis per se might not have begun earlier than most organelles, but with its roots obviously being in prokaryotic DNA replication and division, its orgins certainly are earlier than those of most eukaryotic organelles.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 1:11 AM

Oh really? Then why did you post?

To tell you no one gives a fuck? Derp?

The word is out on the internet and it will spread. That is what is important.

Ha! You obviously don't understand the internets. Everyone except your group of elitist evolutionists doesn't see it as a creationist game, and those who do don't give a fuck. It has a:
4.43/5 on newgrounds.com
7.7/10 on armorgames.com
4.23/5 on kongregate.com
and those numbers aren't going to fall because some blog no one reads thinks it's propaganda.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 1:17 AM

and those numbers aren't going to fall because some blog no one reads thinks it's propaganda.

you might want to look up what an argumentum ad populum is sometime.

elitist evolutionists

you mean practicing, actual scientists instead of ignorant douchebags?

yeah, I'm just "elitist" that way.

I suppose you think DeGrasse Tyson is just another elitist astrophysicist.

no need to bother listening to people who actually study the shit, right?

phht.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 1:21 AM

Yep. See what I did there?

Posted by: raven | July 16, 2010 1:29 AM

troll:

Maybe to you, and the few people who will actually read this whole ordeal. But those are hardly the people who matter to a game designer, right?

You mean his customers? They better matter or he is going to spend his life being a shill for brain dead, evil religious kooks. I doubt they pay well and they would throw him under a bus in a heartbeat for jesus.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 1:32 AM

troll:

trolololololo

You mean his customers?

You don't buy flash games. And I'm pretty sure none of you are the gaming type.

yeah, I'm just "elitist" that way.

Yes, you are.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 1:40 AM

you wasted my bandwidth reading your post?

And your precious time going back and forth with myself and Phoenix for something that doesn't even matter. If you think it really matters that someone, somewhere got facts wrong in a flash game that will be used almost exclusively for entertainment, get over yourselves. Because, regardless of what Phoenix and the scientists supporting the game hope, very few, if any, people will use this to teach. And as I said before, they're either creationists - in which case, who gives a fuck? - or they're incredibly incompetent teachers, in which case they wouldn't do anything right in the first place.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 1:44 AM

Honestly, I think it's embarrassing that a biologist and professor got this worked up about a fucking flash game. Someone who seems to take his whole profession very seriously. Nitpicking a flash game on a supposedly revered scientific blog.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 1:48 AM

Not one bit. Herp derp.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 16, 2010 1:54 AM

And I'm pretty sure none of you are the gaming type.
================================================

Oh lord...prepare to get torn apart by nerds.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 1:59 AM

I do see everyone's point that evolution could have been mentioned more (it actually is mentioned once) in the encyclopedia portion. Perhaps we can change that, though I suspect it wouldn't do anything to change the minds of most people in this thread.

I think that, and maybe a few mentions elsewhere, would probably make most of us reasonably content, as the game itself is fait accompli.

It's the sense that evolution isn't even worth bringing up (except in the one mention) that is most disturbing.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: T_U_T | July 16, 2010 2:01 AM

@Ichthyic

...well, hell, actually this is an ideal thread to ask...

I'm dead serious; at one time I did have a huge interest in doing this kind of thing.

are there others out there with game programming/3-d modeling experience interested in this kind of thing?

If you really mean it, I am all in for it. I have quite extensive experience with both 3D game development and artificial life/evolutionary algorithms, so I think I could help.

Mail me at bobrik at eset dot sk

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 2:06 AM

So wait. If you're all professionals and take this so seriously, why are there hundreds of "GET RIPPED NOW YOU CAN GET A SIX PACK IN 2 DAYS WITH OUR PROGRAM ZOMG GOGOGO" ads all over my page?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 2:12 AM

If you're all professionals and take this so seriously, why are there hundreds of "GET RIPPED NOW YOU CAN GET A SIX PACK IN 2 DAYS WITH OUR PROGRAM ZOMG GOGOGO" ads all over my page?

hey, you're the 'leet intarweb gamerboy, don't you know?

Posted by: raven | July 16, 2010 2:20 AM

Raven, you're sounding insane and overly polemic dial it back 1 decible.

You all are missing the point.

To quote Daniel Dennett roughly: Religion is one of the most effective vehicles of social conflict ever invented.: This is obviously true.

To quote roughly Arnold Toynbee: All civilization have fallen. 18 out of 22 fell from within"

Our American civilization will fall someday. They all do. Two have collapsed in my lifetime, the British empire and the Soviet one.

You can bet with the Brits and Soviets that millions said "It can't happen here" But it did. I know that, heard it from Russian scientists who lost it all and ended up, in of all places, the USA. I bet a lot of Iraqis said the same thing not so long ago.

Phoenix is just a cog in the Doomsday machine. I'm just a cog in their opponents.

I'm a boomer and almost too old to care that much. But really, what about the kids. If it wasn't for them, I'd probably have sold my house and fled the country by now. I may do it anyway someday.

But as someone pointed out. The reason why 1984 didn't happen is because Orwell wrote a book titled "1984".

Yeah, CellCraft won't make much difference in the long run. Or this blog. But if everyone just sits down, were done for. At least in the end, I can say I tried.

Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook | July 16, 2010 3:28 AM

Wait, Smartyjonez says there are ads on pharyngula?

WTF? But surely someone with such 1337 skillz0rz must have adblock!

Posted by: CompulsoryAccount7746 | July 16, 2010 3:53 AM

Ichthyic@283
"Are there others out there with game programming/3-d modeling experience interested in this kind of thing?"

Yep. My background's app coding in various languages primarily, with an atrophying New Media degree (emphasis on 3D/Video). More csci than artist. Been quite enamored with Blender, but it's the kind of thing one needs an excuse like this to use. *grin*

Depending on the engine/framework/language you go with, I may be of some use. ;)

The first half of Zimmer's Microcosm is a nice read for messy-feedback Wall-E inspiration.

As I wrote this, qualified it, qualified some more, and rewrote this, and nearly talked myself out of it, Twain came to mind :P...
"There is nothing that saps one's confidence as the knowing how to do a thing."
 

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 5:46 AM

How was Phoenix lying? Do show where.

Yep, it's exactly the same as fundy logic. Raven is paranoid, dogmatic, insane, and sees the Enemy Boogeymen around every corner. Raven is not a rationalist; his views are based only in his bias, and any evidence to the contrary is simply rejected or molded to fit his conclusion. Don't bother trying to argue with him; it's as pointless as arguing with a YEC.

Gee, let's leave relativity out of our discussion of physics, lest we disturb anyone's placid ignorance.

Posted by: Dania | July 16, 2010 6:51 AM

Owlmirror,

For those unhappy with the game as it is -- exactly what changes should be made to it to emphasize evolution?

I think my greatest problem with this game (besides omitting evolution almost everywhere on the encyclopedia) is the way the organelles pop into existence as if they were designed with a certain purpose in mind. I think focusing on their evolution would be better.

I also don't like how you get to play a cell with no nucleus (and no genetic material) in the beginning. If you want to avoid abiogenesis, maybe you could at least begin with a prokaryotic cell and emphasize the evolution of eukaryotic cells.

Now you just need to make the organelles appear through evolution as they are needed. This probably would require having a population of cells and not just one cell, so you could have variation and selection.

Finding a way to make each organelle appear this way would require more thought and research. Well, the mithoncondria would be easy, I think, if you had several prokariotic cells around preying on each other.

Hmm. Having several cells around with which to compete would actually help with evolving the other organelles too. The player doesn't have to control every cell, of course, just make her/his cell out-compete the others and...

Oh right. You asked for changes. Not for a whole new game. :)

Anyway, I will play it again and think a bit more about this. More thoughts later.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 16, 2010 8:45 AM

Also you left out Plasmids which are perhaps the organelle most adaptable for videogammery.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 16, 2010 9:13 AM

"A good evolution game would leave the user with nothing to do. What can you do but be a godlike figure? While ID is junk science, it makes for interesting gaming. "

You could set up either an open sand box where you control the conditions and watch how the critter's population changes.

Or you could even have challengers and reward players for making the LEAST dramatic environmental changes as possible.

ie "reduce the average size by 50%" gets a good grade if you use a large predator that small ones cna hide from but a poor grade for just kill sating the big ones. causing a land bridge to form to let the predators into the environment is a better grade than just dropping them in. etc.

Hell you could do a lot of fun stuff by setting goals to illustrate population drift and other evolutionary features.

a challenge to induce specialization in a population. Somehow the player has to separate the species into two groups and isolate them. A Divergent evolution challenge where you have to find a way to foster both giants and dwarfs. Hybrid vigor, founder effect, bottle neck. There' s alot of things you could do with just control over the map and heat/temp etc that would be a fun way of demonstrating evolution using the little tomagachis.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 16, 2010 9:48 AM

@ Raven

Yeah and Darwin hates fags. Oh and observation

"That is true. Darwinism is a Big Lie. It is a cult atheist belief that they try to pretend is true.

How do peoploe defend a cult belief that is pure lies? With more lies. That is all they can do. I've never seen a evolutionist that didn't lie, it is simply impossible."

Same level of argument. You're reading like a parody. Take a pill

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 9:52 AM

oh crap he's figured it out

everybody who doesn't agree with him is a christian liar (ie everybody on earth)

he knows that everybody's out to get him

squad zeta, the front door, now!

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | July 16, 2010 10:28 AM

I can see the ID conspiracy in this game. Introduce it as a friendly happy game, but don't mention evolution.

However, I'll agree with the consensus that Anthony was perhaps played. The IDiots who wanted to game made looked for him, they wanted a way to get into the classrooms, and they found it through a little Flash game.

Anthony should have looked to see who it was that were requesting his help. If some creationist morons asked me for help, I'd tell them to go blow themselves.

Posted by: Dania | July 16, 2010 11:03 AM

A good evolution game would leave the user with nothing to do. What can you do but be a godlike figure? While ID is junk science, it makes for interesting gaming.

Yes. You can't make a good evolution game. You can make simulations and you can make games where all the player can do is to select specific traits (but that's artificial selection, so still not ideal).

This, however, is not an evolution game, it's a game about organelles. A game about organelles that left important information out of it because they got creationists as their science advisors.

I think it could be improved but it would never be totally satisfactory as a biology teaching tool, because it would always contain misconceptions. Be it notions of agency in cell activity, intelligent design or even the notion that evolution has a purpose (if we were to include evolution in the gameplay).

Still, the game could be a bit less ID-friendly. But sadly, that seems to have been its purpose right from the beginning.

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 16, 2010 11:19 AM

Oh, I forgot to reply to Ing (#299), who provided some good critiques and challenges to the teaching in the game. I'll reply to the points piecewise.

a) Yeah, platypus being creationist was news to me too, and had nothing to do with their use. The game was intended to be accessible as low as middle school, and we were hoping the style would appeal to a broad audience.

b) Indeed, we had a psychic cell. This was required in order to give the player something tangible to do. Setting parameters just isn't fun for a lot of people, and we wanted the game to have a broader appeal of being more action-oriented.

c) Yes, origin is important, but I disagree that it must be taught while teaching function. But that's a difference of opinion and I do understand your point.

d) Cell to cell competition was considered, but was hugely more complex to program. We barely hit our deadlines as is. :/

e) As I understand it, even as explained by members of this thread, abiogenesis isn't even settled upon by the scientific community. I don't think picking one of many theories is necessarily a good thing.

f) Agreed. Originally we wanted to do more with the membrane, but it got complicated to try to represent and control in the game. That's definitely a weak point in the teaching, but is one of the many things we had to cut to finish the game.

g) Extinction lists would have been interesting, but it also would have created gameplay problems. Do you have to start the whole game over if you let an important piece disappear? How do you design levels when you don't know what the player is going to have without being cruel to the player. The idea is interesting, but the implementation seems problematic.

h) Indeed, that could be very cool!

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 16, 2010 11:44 AM

RPJohnston - I don't yet know if we're going to do any sequels or major revisions. As for my advisors, I'm not willing to throw them under the bus and say they ruined the game. Until someone points out something scientifically wrong that we were told, I maintain that they advised me accurately on the specific questions we asked them. They didn't say "do this, then this". We would ask them "how does a lysosome work?" or "in what ways can a cell defend itself from viruses?" If their answers are wrong, that's a problem. If not, then they did their job as scientific advisors.

The removal of evolution from the gameplay design was primarily the decision of me and the lead programmer (both evolutionists), and was made for gameplay reasons. Yes, I am also concerned that including evolution would have hurt the distribution of the game, but that was not the primary reason it was removed (as you can read in my forum post on our website). Outside of that, I haven't seen any legitimate arguments that the game is in any way insidious for poisonous for its content. I don't know what's next for us, but that's for me to privately work out with my team.

Posted by: toth | July 16, 2010 12:13 PM

Man, EA and Maxis must be in the pocket of the DI, too!!

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | July 16, 2010 12:21 PM

@davep:

He did explain. They approached him with the idea to make the game. He told them what kind of game he would like to make. He asked them questions when he came into a hard point he didn't understand.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 16, 2010 12:33 PM

I actually have to say that mechanistic and the detail with all that is shown animated this is really impressive. I would like to see a sequel or addition that adds some more of the information omitted and addresses some weak points educationally.

Re-addressing points

B) I think it would be more of an acceptable break from reality if the info pop-up on the psuedopod has a explanation explaining how cells can't really see and rely on chemoreceptors. The chemoreceptors increase the chance of the psuedopod moving that way or moving away from it. Explaining that single cell organisms are more like machines in that they lack any agency, there is not 'control' over where they go, it's entirely stimulus driven events that trigger mechanical events.

C) See this is one thing I agree with on PZ in that it's a problem that higher ed needs to de-educate people who don't get this. The mitochondria is the way it is because it was an assimilated organism, as was the Chloroplast. The origin explains why they have to split themselves rather than the nucleus replicating themselves. You notably neglected to point out that Mitochondria and Chloroplast have their own DNA. This is such a flaw I'm going to count it as a factual inaccuracy. Having the first cell you're shown be a simple one with no psuedopod and all and explaining the earliest cells (and many modern ones) have no way of moving and have to take what they can get. Dividing themselves and producing metabolic chemicals is the only way they have to influence their environment. Then they point out that that'd be pretty boring for a game so we're cheating and producing the cytoskeletal elements needed to make a psuedopod. Physiology is based on both function and form, and both are nigh impossible to separate from origin.

D) Yeah but the absence of other cell is kind of notable. Actually having other cells show up but be non-competative would be a way to solve the "organelle from nowhere problem". A cell that has the organelle is introduced and uses the little bugger's whole genome swap trick to do a lateral gene transfer and gives you the power up. This form of "sex" is really interesting and I think kids would find it cool to learn.

E) Yeah, but mentioning in the story the study that produced amino acids from psuedo-primordial soup would be safe to mention. In fact it seems good to have it mentioned and explained to the kids that the mad science here is an outgrowth of such abiogenesis experiments

F) Yes I noticed the membrane image tends to overlap and clip itself. Despite that the mechanism is very well done

G) You reset the organels each level anyway. Having it be a level by level statistic (ie showing what the player tried and didn't work on each level) was more of what I was thinking than each cell carrying over from the previous level. For example on one level I tried to early on make multiple chloro and mitos to get myself a lot of fuel...i was lysed by viruses. That proportion of organelles would be recorded as an "extinct" strain of the cell.

Posted by: davep | July 16, 2010 12:46 PM

Kevin@346: "He did explain. They approached him with the idea to make the game. He told them what kind of game he would like to make. He asked them questions when he came into a hard point he didn't understand."

You'll have to excuse me if I missed that!

If that is the case, then it's their game and, they being creationists, it's a creationist game too.

The real issue is the peculiar advisors.

Phoenix00017's defense of them is naive or ingenuous.

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 12:51 PM

And Phoenix00017 hasn't explained how those advisors came to be selected. It's strange: They are odd and unlikely advisors.

He has explained, multiple times.

You reveal that recondite arcanum in such a debonair fashion!

English, bro. It was a joke.

Your reputation is now established.

It is? I don't even plan on staying here.

You diss retarded ads that you nonetheless feel morally-bound to expose yourself to, and further diss us because you think we too do so — but at least you're not being a dick.

Showing scam ads for "Getting ripped in 30 days" on a "scienceblog" is definitely retarded, whether or not I or you use adblock does nothing to change that. You can close your eyes and throw your hands to your ears and pretend he's not there, but there's still a homeless man pissing on your building.

This smartyjonez character seems a bit of a swaggering arrogant n00b, really.

nou

Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | July 16, 2010 1:00 PM

@Smartyjonez:

Do you know what an ad bureau is?

Posted by: Phoenix00017 | July 16, 2010 1:38 PM

Ing - thank you for the detailed replies. I'm going to do some research and look into it. It may be too late to work into this version, but it's good to have more information for possible future versions. I'm going to sign out now - I need to figure some things out for myself and move on with my life. I've dedicated a lot of time to this, but I have more projects that I need to go on. Thanks again for the advice everyone, and good luck fighting the good fight (though perhaps with slightly less crazy, raven).

Posted by: monado | July 16, 2010 2:20 PM

Phoenix~~~, it would be interesting to have the cells capture free-floating organelles, perhaps thinking that they were food, or organelles burrow into cells, ditto, instead of making it a different act. The "designers" or researchers could just release a swarm of bacterial proto-organelles into their Petri dishes or the organelles could be encountered in the wild.

Garbage collection in the cell is more like a Roomba(TM) vacuum or a prototype cleaning robot with little graspers that takes everything small and on the floor to a bin. The analogy for cities would be pigs running loose to eat organic garbage.

Posted by: Leumas13 | July 16, 2010 2:32 PM

Hi everyone. My name is Sam Flynn. I worked on cellcraft, writing the encyclopedia entries, doing minor testing, and managed the cellcraft blog.

Before I am attacked, I am a Physics student (A GOOD one, I'm a year ahead) at Wake Forest, I am an agnostic, and I whole heartily agree with the scientific basis for evolution.

I would like to say in response to #158, I wrote that encyclopedia entry myself. It was not copied from any material. I purposefully included the endosymbiotic reference. It is mentioned again in the mitochondria entry, though not as much to avoid redundancy. This was purposeful, and I did not "forget to remove it".

Posted by: Jolo5309 | July 16, 2010 2:43 PM

Play Primordial Soup or Tyranno Ex instead. They are better games.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 2:47 PM

I purposefully included the endosymbiotic reference. It is mentioned again in the mitochondria entry, though not as much to avoid redundancy. This was purposeful, and I did not "forget to remove it".

I appreciate that, however it really does not convey what happened very well, at least if this is indeed the entry:

The presence of both a membrane and DNA give support to the idea that chloroplasts were once independent bacteria, that evolved to form more complex cells in conjunction with other organelles (such as mitochondria).

It's the presence of a "double membrane," and the presence of DNA that includes bacterial DNA motifs that supports the conclusion that chloroplasts stem from an endosymbiotic event. Interestingly, some "chloroplasts" have four membranes, indicating endosymbiosis of eukaryotic bacteria which contained endosymbiosed chloroplasts.

And to say "once independent bacteria, that evolved to form more complex cells in conjunction with other organelles (such as mitochondria)," is just confusing. The independent bacteria may have "evolved" while forming more complex cells, but it was a very specific type of evolution. More properly, you'd say something about the eukaryotic cells (which most likely already had mitochondria, or proto-mitochondria, at the time) engulfing (as a predatory act, it is often thought) the bacterium, and the two evolving from there.

So I do applaud the inclusion of evolution there, yet I cannot say that it was done very well. A biologist, and I don't mean a creationist, would be far more likely to produce a more informative and correct entry, or one might have at least consulted with a biologist for that purpose.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 16, 2010 2:50 PM

Crap. I meant to say "if I taught High School History". That's an important distinction.

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 16, 2010 2:53 PM

Also, this was intended as a GAME not a textbook. That is not a fair statement. If it was a textbook, obviously some things would be changed.

I was under the impression that this project was conceived and funded primarily as an educational tool. Am I mistaken about that?

Posted by: monado | July 16, 2010 2:54 PM

I agree about one thing, Phoenix, just because Bill Dembski likes something doesn't mean it proves his point. Just the other day I heard some creationist astronomer citing Richard Lenski's significant multi-year bacterial evolution experiment as proof that evolution doesn't work.

Posted by: Leumas13 | July 16, 2010 2:56 PM

Joe Bleau,

It is, but consider scale. Consider an episode of bill nye vs a textbook. One contains 30 minutes of entertainment material, and one is a textbook. we have introductory material, but we're not a textbook. It's a balance of information and gameplay.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 3:00 PM

the whole freaking point is that we cannot ignore who is behind it

I completely disagree -- the product should be assessed on its actual merits, and not on who made it or advised on it. Honestly, it's not like there is some evil subliminal satanism message that gets played backwards in the game.

How can anyone defend ignoring the process? That's like saying that biology can ignore the evolutionary processes with which life's components and functions originated.

If the process stinks, the product is most likely to -- although it needed necessarily -- be affected adversely by that process. And if we saw a geography game that left out the sphericity of the earth and knew that flat-earthers were consultants on the project, we'd have reason to suspect that the flat-earthers were the cause of that specific defect.

One should never rely primarily upon creationists for any kind of biology project. That's like relying on alchemists for a chemistry game. Even if they know a lot about chemistry, they're prejudiced against legitimate science.

And, oh yes, I didn't preview my correction in comment #365, and I misspelled "algae." Dang.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 16, 2010 3:08 PM

Sigh.

OK, Tulse, once again: No one is saying that the game teaches creationism. We are saying that it advances an agenda.

If you can't understand the difference, well, I guess that's OK. But do be careful as you watch the news, or read blogs, or read the paper, or watch commercials. I hate to break it to you, but the folks who produce that stuff don't necessarily have your best interests at heart.

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 3:19 PM

Leumas,

I understand that, and have argued that point myself. However, that's not what I was asking in my previous post.

The encyclopedia does not affect gameplay. Why is evolution mentioned only in this one, specific instance? Why not in other entries, or as an aside within the game? The gameplay is already interrupted by functions of the organelles; surely it would not be difficult to sprinkle a few extra textbubbles around mentioning evolution? So, why is it included in that one instance, but not in similar instances; and how does this tie in to Anthony's admission of self-censorship?

Posted by: Smartyjonez | July 16, 2010 3:25 PM

Thanks again for the advice everyone, and good luck fighting the good fight

Later Three Dog.

Posted by: Leumas13 | July 16, 2010 3:28 PM

Glen, I respect that point. In fact, specifying the double membrane is an easy fix for us. You're right that it's not specific enough. That error however was my own. There have been a few errors we fixed after the fact, and please don't consider the inclusion of this error as anything but that. It is not worded to promote creationism, it was simply not specific enough. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

I keep finding bits like that, I should have fact checked more strenuously.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 3:33 PM

It is not worded to promote creationism, it was simply not specific enough.

I didn't think it was worded to promote creationism, and hope that I didn't imply as much.

Thanks for being concerned about such details when brought to your attention.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Leumas13 | July 16, 2010 3:41 PM

Glen,
Can you read the ENTIRE entry? I did mention the bi-layer earlier, but if that is incorrect or ambiguous i'd be happy to clarify. I want my writing to be accurate :) Thank you for the clarification about your point.

Joe,
So should a bill nye episode that says "atoms are made of particles called protons neutrons an electrons" subject to this same "if it was a textbook" criticism? He left out quarks, the myriad of other particles, the ideas of string theory on particle creation, quantum chromodynamics. Some of these topics would be explained in a textbook, but bill nye is NOT textbook. it shouldn't have to explain EVERYTHING. he focuses on a specific idea, and that is what we did. we didnt' set out to teach the whole of biology, we set out to teach very specific concepts and facts

I must go, but I'll check back later to respond to any other comments. Thanks for talking with me.

Posted by: davep | July 16, 2010 4:19 PM

Leumas13 is missing the point.

Why use creationists as sources when it's clear that they have an agenda that is intellectually dishonest and scientific nonsense?

If you use suspect sources for a thing, then that thing is suspect too.

It's not like creationists are very common in the science community. It's weird and suspicious that they were involved.

Posted by: davep | July 16, 2010 4:26 PM

It's a little bit like going out of your way to ask Bernie Madoff for investment advice.

It would be hard to convince people that the advice you were given isn't some how tainted. And, it's not like Madoff is the only person in the world to get advice from.

Posted by: tomh | July 16, 2010 4:34 PM

Tulse wrote:
I would like to have people to consider whether, if they didn't know who made this game, they would have the same vehement objections

But that's exactly what happened. From PZ's original post, "the few minutes I spent trying it were also a bit odd — there was something off about it all...These are Intelligent Design creationist superstitions" That led him to look in the credits and find the two creationist advisors.

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 16, 2010 5:04 PM

RPJohnston @393:

I'm not dodging anything! Are you always this obtuse?

Please read this closely, and think about it in the context of my other posts:

From everything that I know about him, Bill Nye is a standup dude w.o. an agenda, other than to promote science in an interesting fashion. If that is right, then then he is a "useful tool". If he is either an activist w. an agenda, or he is a shill (either witting or unwitting) for an activist with an agenda, then he is not. In that case, any given thing that comes out of his mouth may still be true, but it still ought to be closely evaluated in terms of the known agenda.

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 5:17 PM

My bad, I didn't read your last statement closely enough. You stated that he would not be a useful tool due to his "bad" inclinations.

Why is this? Does this mean that other developments, such as the human genome project, or in fact the vast majority of science, is useless due to coming from people who believed in superstitions, and even wanted to "explore God's wondrous creation"?

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 5:33 PM

@Glen: The entire entry for the real-life chloroplast reads thus:

"Chloroplasts are organelles found exclusively in plant cells, and some bacteria.

Chloroplasts are membrane enclosed, protected by a lipid-bilayer similar to the cell's plasma membrane.

Within a chloroplast are grana, stacks of chlorophyll-filled disks called thyklakoids. The chloroplasts produce the chlorophyll which give plants their characteristic green color.

The process of photosynthesis, converting sunlight into useful energy, takes place in the chloroplasts. The chloroplasts contain their own small DNA, which code for proteins necessary for photosynthesis.

The presence of both a membrane and DNA give support to the idea that chloroplasts were once independent bacteria, that evolved to form more complex cells in conjunction with other organelles (such as the mitochondria).

The chloroplasts are visible in the picture, you can even see thylakoids!"

The double-membrane is mentioned, though I agreed with your earlier point, "evolved to form..." isn't quite accurate.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 5:57 PM

"bad" Bill Nye?

is that the one with the goatee?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 6:00 PM

for those interested in bouncing around ideas for another 3-d biology based game, I will create a space for a discussion thread later today, and post the link here.

It will be by invite only, and I will post the email to send requests to.

cheers!

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 6:07 PM

A good evolution game would leave the user with nothing to do. What can you do but be a godlike figure?

no.

someone earlier suggested incorporating being able to change the environment to select for different phenotypes.

sure, this is like being omniscient (unavoidable in some sense), but surely you can see how one would then learn how environment works to select phenotypes within a population, and how the population then begins to change?

there have been games that have done this before, and I always found it both fun and instructive.

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 6:17 PM

No, it doesn't mean it is "useless". People (scientists) don't merely accept the validity of that information. THey look at it critically (like people are doing here).

sure, this is like being omniscient (unavoidable in some sense), but surely you can see how one would then learn how environment works to select phenotypes within a population, and how the population then begins to change?

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 6:24 PM

You've simply moved the god factor further outside

one mimics an actual, observed process, the other mimics a fantasy.

can you guess which?

;)

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 6:32 PM

Oh right, thanks Sven, I just sort of went with bilayer = double membrane, even though that's not the case at all. I should have noticed that error, since a lipid bilayer = 1 membrane.

I'm really writing because I just thought I'd elaborate a bit more on the photosynthetic structures in bacteria, since bacteria generally are low in organelles. I wrote:

Chloroplasts are not found in bacteria, although separate compartments do exist in bacteria in which photosynthesis occurs.

My Biochemistry book puts it this way:

Since bacteria do not contain chloroplasts, photosynthesis occurs in the plasma membrane. The plasma membrane of photosynthetic bacteria is a highly invaginated, contiguous membrane creating two cellular compartments--the cytosol and the periplasmic space. The translocation of protons into the periplasmic space creates the protonmotive force for photophosphorylation. The plasma membrane is not homogeneous; respiratory and photosynthetic activities are localized in different portions of the membrane.

pp. 19-15--19-16 Larry Moran et al. Biochemistry Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994.

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 6:45 PM

IIRC, unless the phylogeny has changed recently, algae are still considered plants, just not vascular plants.

Phylogeny has not changed recently, but taxonomy has changed, although not so very recently. Actually, I believe that plants and at least some of the green algae would be listed in the same kingdom in most schemes. I was aware that some algae might be considered to be "plants" of some kind, but wrote summarily.

Here's a short excerpt from the Monterey Bay Aquarium:

Protista The kingdom protista contains a variety of different organisms, ranging from animal-like to fungi-like. These organisms have all been included to the same taxonomic kingdom for their simple construction, and most are unicellular species. Algae used to be classified with plants because they have chlorophyll a, they are plantlike and photosynthetic. But they have since been moved to Protista because of their simple construction, the broad range of photosynthetic pigments they use, the lack of protective tissue surrounding their "naked" gametes, and their highly varied life histories.The algae are considered primitive photosynthetic organisms based on their reproduction and simplistic construction. Algae have been found in the fossil record as early as 590 million years ago for macroscopic algae, and 1900 million years ago for microscopic algae.

http://www.mbari.org/staff/conn/botany/browns/cystoseira/taxonomy.htm

I realize that I probably shouldn't have implied that the algae from which plants arose are not "plants" in any way. Even there, though, many would not think of them as plants per se.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 6:50 PM

how is RNA made from DNA, and why? It doesn't say. Yet I hear no outcry about its omission of cellular chemitry. Is chemistry so unimportant?

hardly, in fact you raise a good point.

why NOT include a bit of the chemistry involved, too?

Unless you can tell me otherwise, it appears all you are doing in this thread so far is trying to play spoiler to what the game COULD be.

why?

seems a waste of time to me.

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 6:54 PM

Of course I'm not saying that no biologists consider, say, brown algae to be plants (think kelp).

Hmmph.

things must have changed much since I took phycology as an undergrad then.

what are they currently classified as?

again, last I checked, they came under "non-vascular plants"?

Posted by: RPJohnston | July 16, 2010 7:02 PM

@Ichthyic: It seems we are arguing in agreement, then =P

Sorry, I went back and looked at your post and realized I misinterpreted it. My mistake.

Evolution and cell biology don't need to be exclusive, and I would agree that the game could probably be better with evolution featuring more prominently, without require a great deal of tweaking. The same goes for chemistry.

However, there does come a point where you have to cut things out for the sake of focus and/or gameplay. All of these aspects and disciplines are interlinked; any severance made will necessarily be artificial. Omitting evolution, chemistry and others doesn't make it necessarily "bad", just limited. I do believe they limited themselves more than was necessary.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 16, 2010 7:09 PM

Reasonably current eukaryote phylogeny
Algae:
Any photosynthetic organism other than terrestrial plants is or has been called "algae". Cyanobacteria ("Blue-green algae") have been mentioned; they're bacteria.
The "green algae" are the paraphyletic sister-groups of Plants sensu stricto. "Red algae" are probably the sister-group to the green algae + plants.
It looks like "Brown algae" are only distantly related to the red + green clade, and so their chloroplasts/photosynthetic ability and multicellularity are convergent.
Then there are lots of single-celled "algae" like diatoms, dinoflagellates, photosynthetic flagellates, etc. Among the dinoflagellates alone there is evidence for several separate inventions of the chloroplast from different starting organisms, it's pretty cool; see here.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 16, 2010 7:18 PM

At Berkeley's UC Museum of Paleontology they're putting some "algae" into the kingdom Chromista, and at least most of the rest into the kingdom Protista:

Kingdoms
CHROMISTA (Kelps, diatoms, haptophytes)
FUNGI (Fungi)

METAZOA (Animals)

PLANTAE (Plants)

PROTISTA (Protists)

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/

Well, it is kind of a mess. They're using domains as well. I suspect that after a number of more genomes are sequenced, there will be some significant changes in taxonomy, especially in catch-all categories like "protists."

Glen Davidson

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2010 7:24 PM

CHROMISTA (Kelps, diatoms, haptophytes)

damn!

the things ya miss focusing on behavior research!

times have indeed changed.

Posted by: Joe Bleau | July 16, 2010 8:33 PM

I don't think people are complaining about the particular data presented.

Yes, this.

I'm sorry if I sounded short before, I was in a hurry to leave (last day at old crappy job, woo-hoo!), and getting frustrated that people seemed to be willfully misconstruing what I was saying.

I'm disappointed that my textbook example seemed to fall flat - I thought that it was pretty apt and illustrative of the point that I was trying to make :-/ But then the conversation got derailed by utterly irrelevant matters of "scope".

The point is this - restricting or focusing the conversation to merely the truth of falsity (or "validity") of the the data is misleading and disingenuous. That's the dodge. It distracts the conversation away from this indisputable point, which (it seems to me at least) is central to this discussion at hand, and which is pretty much incotrovertable -- Context matters.

Mrs. Bleau happens to be a High School teacher, who has been deeply involved in curriculum development for over 16 years. So I've been around the process - and I guarantee you, there are many, many considerations that go into what gets taught, and how, other than just what is "true". Every bit as much consideration goes into what doesn't get taught as what does.

If you follow the link that I included in my textbook example, you'll see a crystal clear illustration of how a group with an agenda can push that agenda in an educational setting not by spreading lies or telling untruths, but simply by including some facts and excluding others. I am not suggesting that the facts in the book are less true or valid because of this agenda - I'm suggesting that the selection of which facts get presented, and how, clearly and obviously suits the agenda of the group pushing for the changes. The process and context in which the changes were conceived and implemented is abso-freaking-lutely relevant to the question of what kind of education students will get if they use those books.

Context matters.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 16, 2010 11:47 PM

"Ing, You don't need to physically separate organisms to make them evolve differently; if you have multiple cells and release a "prey" or "food" that comes in different types that need different methods of capture, you're setting up evolutionary conditions. For example, you could have small and large food particles. They could be fallen upon by cells, with a 60% escape rate; or the large ones could be grabbed by lumps --> prongs --> pincers, with greater and greater success, while the small ones could be impaled by points --> thorns --> spears, ditto. Soon you'd have two populations with two different tools eating different prey. "

================================================

Yeah, no duh. I gave ONE example of many. not an idiot here.

Posted by: lhikanliveson | October 24, 2010 12:00 AM

Personally, I can't wait until World of Cellcraft. I'm thinking I'll play a Night Cellf Druid.