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Post by worlder on May 22, 2010 19:02:30 GMT -5
Now we all heard the idiotic strawmen of the theory of evolution.
Dogs turning into cats, half-duck half-crocodile creatures, and apes in the zoo turning into people.
What if we seriously just took the image of those events and just run with it in a comedy movie?
Scientists in that movie are baffled and exclaim that it is physically impossible. Fundie characters convert to a new "First Church of Evolutionism".
Not sure what the plot is going to be, but I say that the whole strange group of events are a result of aliens messing around with our planet for the lulz.
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Post by HarleyThomas1002 on May 22, 2010 22:01:38 GMT -5
Pokémon.
A lizard turning into a lizard turning into a dragon.
Or Digimon. A little marshmellow creature (or cat) turning into an angle.
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Post by Vene on May 22, 2010 23:10:46 GMT -5
Pokémon. A lizard turning into a lizard turning into a dragon. Or Digimon. A little marshmellow creature (or cat) turning into an angle. So, something like this:  turning into something like this: \___ |
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Post by worlder on May 22, 2010 23:10:57 GMT -5
Pokémon. A lizard turning into a lizard turning into a dragon. Or Digimon. A little marshmellow creature (or cat) turning into an angle. Not the social commentary I'm looking for. |
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Post by DarkfireTaimatsu on May 22, 2010 23:43:59 GMT -5
Pokémon. A lizard turning into a lizard turning into a dragon. Better: a fish turning into an octopus. An antlion turning into a dragonfly turning into an actual dragon. |
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Post by anti-nonsense on May 22, 2010 23:47:37 GMT -5
Or a fish turning into a massive sea serpent/dragon thing.
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Post by MaybeNever on May 22, 2010 23:49:46 GMT -5
Actually, Spore pretty closely matches the fundies' view of evolution, to be honest. Obviously it doesn't deal with them specifically, but you pretty much have the Hand of God guide "evolution" however it damn well pleases, with animals laying eggs that hatch creatures so completely different from the parents that they could not conceivably be the same species, and usually not even the same phylum.
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Post by worlder on May 23, 2010 0:12:45 GMT -5
The movie should explain evolution as well as ask some fundies, "Ok your idea of evolution has come true. What is your response?"
They could say...
"This is not a result of evolution. This is a work of God."
"This is a sign of the Devil."
"That's it! I'm an Evolutionist now!"
Meanwhile the scientists are finding a way to rationalize this series of strange events of organisms morphing into far branch of life repeatedly.
Of course it is all the work of aliens.
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Post by DarkfireTaimatsu on May 23, 2010 0:17:23 GMT -5
Or a fish turning into a massive sea serpent/dragon thing. That one's based on an actual legend, though, so it makes sense. In a way. |
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Post by HarleyThomas1002 on May 23, 2010 0:51:14 GMT -5
Or a fish turning into a massive sea serpent/dragon thing. That one's based on an actual legend, though, so it makes sense. In a way. A legend of Devil worshipping and talking shit about God! |
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Post by SpaceProg on May 23, 2010 1:13:25 GMT -5
Pokémon. A lizard turning into a lizard turning into a dragon. Or Digimon. A little marshmellow creature (or cat) turning into an angle. So, something like this: turning into something like this: \___ Aww, but it would be so acute! Okay give me the tomatoes, I deserved that one. |
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Post by HarleyThomas1002 on May 23, 2010 1:18:09 GMT -5
Pokémon. A lizard turning into a lizard turning into a dragon. Or Digimon. A little marshmellow creature (or cat) turning into an angle. So, something like this: turning into something like this: \___ Leave me and my inability to spell angel alone. |
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Post by azolgar on May 23, 2010 4:39:46 GMT -5
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Post by Lady Renae on May 23, 2010 17:11:55 GMT -5
Actually, Spore pretty closely matches the fundies' view of evolution, to be honest. Obviously it doesn't deal with them specifically, but you pretty much have the Hand of God guide "evolution" however it damn well pleases, with animals laying eggs that hatch creatures so completely different from the parents that they could not conceivably be the same species, and usually not even the same phylum. Actually, when the egg hatches it's surrounded by other critters that look just like it, so arguably what you're doing is selecting the next definitive stage in the evolutionary process, not the next generation (unless your changes were that small). Additionally, the complexity cap, the fact that the benefits of what you put on the creature determine whether it lives or dies, and loads of other pieces of the game tend to follow the basic principles of evolutionary theory pretty well, especially at the harder difficulty levels. Where it starts being a creationist's wet dream is when someone enters a cheat code to do whatever the fuck they want regardless of what the game says, i.e. "God mode". Besides... it's a video game. I've been wanting something similar to this since B.C. got canned, but no matter what format it was coming in I knew there were going to be limits to how realistic they could make it and still have a playable and marketable game. |
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Post by MaybeNever on May 23, 2010 17:41:13 GMT -5
I suppose that's possible. It's been a long time since I played Spore, mostly due to my frustration at having non-evolutionary evolution and the space age being made of intense frustration and micro-management. Complexity limits are well and good, but the fact that I can literally rebuild my creature from the ground up at will means that it has almost no actual resemblance to evolution (unless we suppose that we are jumping to whatever species we feel like playing at the time instead of following an evolutionary chain down the line to sapience, as I believe was the intent of the game).
I disagree that it is not possible (or at least impractical) to make a fun video game that is also fairly realistic in evolutionary terms; the only departure that I think is necessary from reality is to let the player make evolutionary choices instead of leaving it to pure probabilistic functions. You could have the player periodically be presented with, say, five variants of whatever his or her creature is, each with small randomly-selected benefits to some specific area or areas of function and maybe a small penalty here or there as well, and the player gets to choose which one he or she controls.
Then all five go out there with several instances of each, and if one gets eaten, variants of that type are less likely to appear in future generational selection. If a variant is completely extinguished, it simply doesn't reappear. By contrast, if one type has all of its instances survive, it's more likely to have variants appear in future generational selection. Over time, you could see new species emerge from the surviving variants.
Then have the environment change sporadically to create shifting selective pressures and you'd have a core game that I think models evolution quite a bit better than Spore currently does.
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