I don’t usually get into video games but I recently purchased Spore and man is it incredible.
Part Pac-man, part Warcraft, part Sim City, part Starcraft it is a diversion that is devastating. I will start playing and then be stunned when I realize how long I have been playing. Julie has been on nights (bad combo) and I am ashamed to admit what time I ended up going to bed. (let’s just say it had a 3 in it :{ )
First you start out as a single celled organism in a cell pool and you have to eat plant particles (or meat if you are a carnivore) and see if you can grow to the next level. Find a mate and you can trade in DNA credits for extra features that can help your creature thrive.
Eventually you can buy some legs and walk out of there and continue the struggle to survive out on land. As you gain credit you can add other features and expand the capacity of your creation. It is engrossing and devastating for the amount of sleep you are getting down.
What I find amusing is how people are responding to the game. One gamer says, “I am gaining new insight into the evolutionary process through this game”. National Geographic has a 120 page hard cover book that comes with a ‘Galactic’ version of the game that talks about what features in life forms on earth have aided their success in the ‘cess pool’ of reality.
I have gained a new insight into evolution through the game too … First of all that this game is the exact opposite of what people suppose biological evolution to be! In this game there is a designer (you!) who is adapting and managing and controlling the outcomes. This game is a convincing endorsement of creationism, at least to a small extent.
Case in point. Here are Daniel’s last few creations:
Similar features, similar themes, the same can be said for mammals in real life. Variety in detail but a host of similarities. Now you can also account for similar design through evolution, I know that, but a designer yields a creation that shows design. Random chaos yields chaos.
The world I see every morning just isn’t chaotic enough to account for the wildly irratic outcomes that should be there if biological evolution were determining our fates here.
ephesians2eight 