Spore is creationism gone mad The player as god, controls all aspects of the way the creature changes. Moreover the changes can be utterly arbitrary. Evolution is a series of small changes which provide speciation advantages. An example would the giraffe. Trees and proto-giraffes racing each other to the sky. In each generation only the tallest survive. On a serious note. I have been unhappy that, in spore. evolutionary advances are to purchased with points. What? Like aspiration rewards?
I'm going to argue with you, 'cause I think you are just plain wrong. Spore isn't so much creationism as it is Intelligent design. (or as I believe Mr. Wright stated it, un-intelligent design). Unless I'm much mistaken creationism follows the idea that there is no evolution, creature and the world were placed as they are today and will happily continue on that track. Intelligent design, however,follows the idea that there is guiding hand to the natural evolution process. Your description of evolution is a little bit lacking as well, but I'll let it slide, the basis of evolution is portrayed. As for the points, they are DNA points rewarded for eating things, and, perhaps, for being social and the like. Aspiration rewards, if I'm right, were more objects to be used, not an increase in personality points or even skills. So, I would argue, no, not like aspiration.
Oh, the aspiration rewards issue is just splitting hairs, surely? (Or do I mean DNA strands ) I thought my two sentence outline of Darwinian principles was pretty neat, as it happens. I doubt that it is possible to attain greater accuracy with as few words, nor to remove much in the way of doubts and uncertainty with any greater amount. One and a half centuries later, the jury is still out on evolution and Chuck Darwin's observational analyses of the diversity of this planet's flora and fauna. But the nitty gritty of your disagreement obviously lays in my opening statement. Creationism stipulates the hand of a god. Now the god of the Hebrews' Genesis might very well have used omnipotent power to instantaneously generate fully finished organisms, but it is a false premise to assume all other gods, greater or lesser, fictional, imaginary or real would want to do the same, even if they could. Therefore I contend that, such an alternative god, directing the developmental changes of a life form over a few short generations (without an actual genetic code), would have still to be creationism. Intelligent design proposes that speciation is directed through genetic means by an intelligent agency, which is external to the biochemcial mechanism of inheritance. I see no evidence that individual creatures in Spore are to possess Sims 2-like DNA, with concomitant physiognomic inheritable variations. No. The god/goddess will merely extrude a new claw, tentacle, eye-stalk, proboscis, whatever and the critter will just have to learn to get along with it anyway it can. That's no kind of evolution and intelligence plays no part at all (or at least it need not play a part). That is why I labelled it creationism gone mad. A sensible god would create and be done with it. Not keep going back and tinkering, rewarding successful breeders, singers, whatever, with brains and legs. I am rather happy to living in a universe where either our Creator was sane, or else the random laws of physics resulted in homo sapiens who was thoroughly amazed and banjaxed when he finally deducing that the gravitational constant explains why buttered toast lands on the buttered side more often than on the unbuttered side. I learned all my fizzix from the late great Douglas Adams ....
Creationism does not stipulate the hand of god generally, it specifically stipulates the hand of the Hebrew/Christian god as portrayed in the bible. The exact defnition of creationism is as follows: "Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible." Therefore your hypothetical, alternative god, is of no consequence as your title has been defeated as is. This game has nothing to do with the bibles portrayal of the creation of man. Your creatures do not just appear out of nowhere and exist as fully developed beings. Nor do you actually exude body parts. Your creature lays an egg, and the hatched creature has the new developments, not the existing creature. This is how evolution works, through generations, not instantaneously through "creationism" as you call your theory.
All religions, or cultures, have creation myths. Not all of them involve the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god. I did, actually point out that I suggest that instantaneous creation is merely one way to stipulate the concept of creationism. Less powerful gods might opt for working up a design of their liking over a few dozen generations. It would still be creationism if there wasn't a mechanism for genetic inheritance present. Both intelligent design and evolution call for genetics and a system of inheritance. The Sims 2 has such a system, albeit empirical and somewhat disingenuously facile, but unless I have grossly misunderstood the propaganda, Spore is not so equipped. Moreover both evolution and intelligent design require myriads of generations, millions of generations. Although intelligent design (not a concept I have much interest in, to be honest) would seem to need less generations than the version which is driven only natural laws. Perhaps my title is misleading. In the US "mad" tends to mean "angry", whereas I meant wacky, or a little crazy, slightly crackpot. Not the full picnic. Whatever my final decision regarding the purchase of Spore (and I probably will buy it, just to see how good it is), I will wait to to play before I make my final judgement. This section was opened for us to share our opinions on whether Spore is creationist, or otherwise and I kicked off with my own opinion. Firemaker, and Hazath, I don't know either of you that well, but I am perplexed to see you trying to shoot down my theory with quotes and definitions and logic as though it [my theory] is worthy of serious analysis. Firemaker, I have no idea where you got your definition of creationism from but the quote you give is entirely wrong, because -- and only because -- it takes as its premise the absolutely parochial Judean Penteuchal creation account as the only source of human creationist mythology. I would've hoped that we could be broader minded than that.
You must understand that most of us in the spore following have been involved for at least a year and a half, some, like myself, found out about spore in May of 2005, so the wait has been long. As a consequence of such a wait we have spent many an hour learning about Spore and discussing it. This likely results in us having rather pointed opinions of spore based on a (usually) rather comprehensive understanding of Spore. This does not mean we know everything about the game, but when we see something that we have reached some sort of a consensus on - and we see the same argument that we have discussed before - it is almost an insult to our discussion we have had before, almost a way of saying we have not said anything of notice. With that being said, I honestly don't expect you to have read all, or any for that matter, of our discussions from Snooty Spore, so you would have no way of knowing such had been discussed. Furthermore, I can't speak for Firemaker, but I tend to be rather definitive, I'm more than happy to hear a new idea, but until I see some basis for what is said (in this case some transcript or video from Will Wright or his team) I'm going to go with the most logical of explanations - and to me (and Will Wirght) this is a process of (un)intelligent design. n.b. - Firemaker's definition of creationism is very simmilar to the one given by Merriam Webster at http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/creationism ( doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis) I hope I need not remind anyone that a capital 'G' on god denotes the god of Abraham (you forgot to mention this same god is for those of the Baha'i Faith)
If I had been concerned with the doctrine of creation as taught in the Pentateuch I'd have used a capital C for creationism. Of course, and too late, I realise there was no way for anyone to have known that I was drawing a distinction between one creationist account and all the others which exist in myriad cultures. To my simple mind, creationism is simple -- or maybe not so simple -- magic. Either that or some other sorts of esoteric explanations for the unknowable. We weren't there to see it, so we have to rely on other means of discovering the truth. And yes, I am trying not to criticise, nor to own any particular doctrine. There is truth, in greater or lesser amounts in all mankind's beliefs and theories. I have also been following Spore since it was first announced. I have, however avoided getting much embroiled in discussion of it. As you have admitted, Hazath, information is scant, at best, and certainly incomplete. As Pescado would say, "Spore is mere Lies and Propaganda". I sympathise with your difficulty in deciding on a change of ideological belief. If you believe that Spore represents Intelligent Design, with or without an un prefix, then to change your mind might look a little wishy-washy. I would still insist that Spore fits more aptly into a creationist genre, as I understand the concept of creation, even if I had dinner with Will Wright who insisted that his intentions were always that it was to be modelled on a ID basis and that he considered that design parameter had been met 100%. I would not think it likely I could change his mind ... but I might try ....
creationism (capital C or not, doesn't matter) is the belief that either god (capital C) or some divine power (lower case c) up and out of nowhere plopped fully developed life down on the planet. It doesn't have to be biblical, but it usually is in reference to it. Intelligent design is the belief that certain features of living things can be attributed to an intelligent cause. Some sort of divine designer, yes, but that does not make it creationism. In Spore, you do not plop a creature out of the sky. It evolves slowly from a single celled organism, which then reproduces and its offspring gain new features. This is an accelerated form of evolution and you, the player, are simply the intelligent designer. The only case in which I would make a concession to your accusations would be IF our creatures, when we evolved them, simply dropped into existence. Which is not the case, they are hatched from eggs. If you look at things from the game creature's perspective, they are born the way they are. They have no idea some being is guiding their evolution. They enjoy their life, or not, and then mate and have children who come out looking a little different. This can lead to confusion, but I assure you that it is not creationism. While the game may seem like god playing, you really aren't, you are still limited to the strengths and weaknesses of your starting species. If they die, you die. It is more like playing The Sims or Sim City, you are guiding the progress, not dictating it. A god has control over the weather, for example. You only gain that ability when your species gets a space ship and sufficient technology. The only point in which you gain god like abilities is through the technology of your species. You are much less a god and much more a collective intelligence guiding your entire species development, as a part of it rather than apart from it. You start out as the cell, and evolve into the creature, then and only then does a tribe begin to form but you still end up controlling one or more of them at a time. After the city forms, you do step back but you still end up guiding what they will do diplomatically and socially. You could say you dictate the construction of the city, but then you'd have to call Sim City a god building game as well, when your really just a general contractor. Then you hit civilization and become basically a president or dictator. Then space in which you take control of a crew of your species and take off in a space ship and become the intergalactic ambassador for your species.
Here's my theories of how Spore is related to real life: 1. Spore is what would have happened, millions of years ago, if God(whichever religion and race he may be) was young and careless and just wanted to have some fun. 2. Spore is what WILL happen after the Earth is destroyed and the remaining humans develop super-intelligence and start breeding and genetically mutating creatures. 3. Spore is happening right now in a distant galaxy.
Very well put Sir Stan :checkmark:, I think Will created it this way so players could have the ability to do almost anything and change almost anything in the game. So players could take control of the situation is mod it like clay as much as they want in their preference, so basicly he made it so it would be a Realistic free formed sandbox. I as much like the way the game is right now, Kinda like Black and White 2 and i mean that like you can change this and move that and kill that XD. Thanks for reading this I hope no one gets a headache today from all these long posts.
