Spore's poor

P Z Myers on dumbification.

P.S.: 'Gonzo scientist'

Toys

A review of Spore calls it a toy rather than a game. I may be quite wrong, but it sounds (at least from the review) as if Will Wright & co have not really thought about living things as part of larger dynamic systems, except as combatants in zero sum conflicts. Does he need to talk to an ecologist?

P.S. 11 Sep:

Despite some overenthusiastic prognostications in reviews—"Spore could be the greatest gaming tool ever created to disseminate Darwinistic ideas," says one critic—the game makes no room for random mutation, the real source of differentiation. And natural selection plays only a minor role.

--says Luke O'Brien.

In the image of man

At the time of writing, Sporepedia lists more than 907,000 new species. Will this creativity and playfulness broaden imaginations to the pre-existing natural world or channel them away from it?

above: a contender for title of the world's ugliest dog.