I find this discussion funny..it’s just a cellular biology strategy game. I have yet to play, but I’ll take a crack at it soon.
The argument rages over at Panda’s Thumb, where PZ Myers suggests the game’s method for introducing important new structures to the cells in the game spanks of intelligent design.
Where do you get these organelles? A species of intelligent platypus just poofs them into existence for you when you need them. What is the goal? The cells have a lot of room in their genomes, so the platypuses are going to put platypus DNA in there, so they can launch them off to planet E4R1H to colonize it with more platypuses. Uh-oh. These are Intelligent Design creationist superstitions: that organelles didn’t evolve, but were created for a purpose; that ancient cells were ‘front-loaded’ with the information to produced more complex species; and that there must be a purpose to all that excess DNA other than that it is junk.
CellCraft [Game Website, via Wired’s Geekdad]
pz meyers is a goddam twat. this game is awesome and can teach people a shitload about cell biology
also a race of super-intelligent platypi creating artificial life in order to save their planet from extinction is not in any way advocating intelligent design ideas
it is pretty standard sci-fi video game fare
A++ would strategize again
