The History Deniers

Sadly, there are those who deny the fact of evolution - 130 million of them in the US alone, according to a recent Gallup poll. These "history deniers" (an apt designation I'll borrow from Richard Dawkins) remain unconvinced by the veritable mountain of evidence for evolution, a mountain which grows day by day. Recent books, such as Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True or Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth - though triumphs of reason and lucidity - will hardly make a dent in the legions of the history deniers, the "unsinkable rubber ducks" (to borrow James Randi's delightful phrase). It will take a greater concerted effort than just a couple of bestsellers to turn the tide, and it's up to us laypeople to do our bit, too.

Hence this edition of Pernicious Fallacies. In it, I shall be addressing dyed-in-the-wool creationists - the persuasion that believe that the Earth was created in 6 days less than 10,000 years ago, and that all modern species of animal, including humans, were created in their present form before God took His well-deserved day off. I shall not be addressing the more "sophisticated" proponents of ID (Intelligent Design), who actually believe in evolution, albeit a gimped kind of evolution, helped along at crucial junctures by a God who was apparently too lame to get it right in the first place. Whatever percentage of you are already down with Darwin, feel free to stop reading now.

From Wolf to Poodle

Yes, I'm bringing up the tired old dog breeding argument. I'm fully aware of the creationist counterargument, but bear with me, because I have a twist on it.

Selective breeding of animals with the intent to exaggerate desired traits over successive generations, or "artificial selection", is well known and well documented. Even history deniers comfortable with dismissing the fossil, molecular, and distributional evidence for natural selection would think twice before denying the comparatively recent historical evidence for artificial selection. A good example of what artificial selection can achieve in a short span of time is the modern banana. Though there are those who believe the banana was designed by the Almighty Himself, I'd like to think these people are embarrassments even to creationists.

At the core of it, all Darwin and modern Darwinists are claiming is that Nature, as well as Man, can act as a selective breeder, through the non-random survival (and more specifically, reproductive success) of individuals, and that this "natural selection" is responsible for all the diverse life we see around us.

Where creationists have trouble is with that last bit. The difference between breeds of dog, or cabbage, while oftentimes spectacular, pales in comparison to the difference between a dog and giraffe, a cabbage and a tree, or even a human and an ape. Thus they find it hard to imagine these tiny gradations ever leading to all the diversity of life we see around us, from the tiniest microbe to the blue whale. Evolutionists, when trying to help them see how this could in fact be the case, often say something like, "if you can turn a wolf into a poodle in a few centuries, imagine what great change could be wrought in a billion years!" A billion years. It's no wonder the evolutionists find it so easy to accept a single-celled organism giving rise to all life on Earth, no matter how complex it appears - look at the time they have to work with! But creationists, sadly, haven't the luxury. They don't have more than a hundred centuries to work with - and it's a bit confining, but it's what they're stuck with.

Thus creationists accept (as they must) that artificial selection works, but only up to a point. "You can create variations of dogs and cabbages with the process," they'll concede, "but you'll never make a new species. Only God can do that." There's always the matter of the definition of "species", which began as scientific terminology and should remain thus, and should not be used to mean "groups of animals so obviously different I can tell them apart". But let's leave that to the side, as it really doesn't matter for our purposes here.

Creationist's Evolution

So let's, just for the sake of argument, concede the point. The Earth is only 10,000 years old (you could concievably buy that many candles for its birthday, whereas 4.6 billion would really put you out, so that's something at least), and you can't make a new species using evolution. So as a creationist, you accept artificial selection, and with a few logical leaps accept (let's say) natural selection as a comparable agency with comparable effects. It would then follow that all modern animals are at least as different from their ancestors in the days of Genesis as modern dogs are from the archetypal wolf. Or would it necessarily follow? To be sure, there are still wolves - certainly not the same wolves from the dawn of time (none live that long, of course), but a branch of descendants that differ very little from the archetypal wolf (God's wolf, if you like). So, would it follow then that at least most modern animals are as different from their original forms as a poodle is from a wolf, while some percentage have somehow managed to remain unchanged (conveniently for us, as we could use them as near examples of what the "Adam and Eve" of that animal species might have been like)?

This "creationist's evolution" I have led you to is not what I believe, of course, but it is reasonable within the framework of creationism. It would even help answer some prickly questions about God and creationism. For one, God would only have to have made a template for each animal species, an animal "Adam and Eve" as I put it. This template of His would then be subject to explosive variation at the hands of either Nature, or meddlesome Man, it matters little which. This would shed some light on God's apparent pre-occupation with beetles. Furthermore, it would make Noah's job a heck of a lot easier. A couple of spiders on the Ark might be bearable, but two of each of the 40,000 spider species?

I have made these points in an attempt to outline a kind of evolution in which a creationist might be comfortable believing. I wanted to make "evolution" less of a dirty word - it just means change over time, people. Unlike "atheist" or even "humanist" it doesn't have an inbuilt denial of God, or even of a Young Earth. It might be unpalatable to true Darwinists like me, but it could be useful for opening a dialogue, finding some common ground. After all, a denial of "change over time" is harder for a creationist to muster, especially with domesticated animals staring them in the face. This merry chase of "creationist evolution" is meant to divest the mere word "evolution" from the uncomfortable, monkey-laden specifics of Darwin's theory that creationists so revile.

But is even this Godly evolution inoffensive to the creationist? Or is even this ecumenical fiction I have constructed - no worse than most theological musings - still going to ruffle some staunch feathers? It might at that, because of something called "Platonic Essentialism".

Master Tapes, Signal Noise, and Wikipedia

It was argued by Plato that, for everything that exists, there is an ideal example (perhaps existent somewhere, perhaps not), an "essence". Every triangle, it might be said, is but an imperfect approximation of the "perfect triangle", drawn by fallible human hands on stone, papyrus, or today made of tiny pixels on a screen. In the same way, might there be an "essence" of every animal species, and every member of the species is but an imperfect approximation, cast from the essential mould? In the terms of our "creationist's evolution", these "essences" would be the animal Adams and Eves, the original ancestral archetypes of all future animals. Every animal born in the species would, instead of copying their own parents, copy instead the archetype, cast by God and therefore perfect.

We can here use the analogy of "master tapes". When (back in the day of VHS and audio cassette) a company produced thousands of tapes for the public to buy, each tape was a copy of a master tape (or, I imagine more rarely, a set of master tapes). It wouldn't have been wise to copy a second copy of the master tape, and then make a third copy by copying the second copy, and so on down the line. By the time you reached the thousandth copy, the picture (or sound) would have deteriorated far too much to be useful.

I must digress here briefly for the benefit of evolutionists. This "copied tape" argument is sometimes leveled against evolution as evidence against it. A thousandth generation VHS is mush - so how can a thousandth generation rabbit be anything but mush, if evolution is true? The answer is that VHS technology is analog, and the signal noise introduced with every generation is faithfully reproduced in the next. But DNA, the replicator upon which life depends, is digital, and signal noise doesn't accumulate quickly enough to reduce the message to mush. Certainly errors occur, as they do with our manmade digital devices, but they occur much more seldomly. At this diminished rate (characteristic of a digital process) the errors - mutations - don't build up, at least not in the same way. What do I mean by this?

Think of it like Wikipedia. Imagine any Wikipedia article of your choice as a gene pool, and any edits that are made to it as mutations. Anytime a deleterious edit is made (vandalism, misinformation, etc), it is promptly removed, reverting the article to its pure state. In the same way, if an individual bears a mutant offspring whose mutation has a harmful effect on the offspring's survival or reproductive success, that mutation is in effect removed from the gene pool. Unlike the signal noise on a VHS, the mutation will never reach a successive generation because it isn't as good at getting there. If a Wikipedia edit is constructive, however, it will not be promptly removed. Instead, it will persist. In the same way, any mutation, no matter how rare, if it has a positive effect, will persist. (We can ignore the specifics of neutral mutations, which - while well understood - complicate the analogy.) Even if in any given generation the vast majority of mutations do not have any positive effect, over time, the only effects that remain will be the positive (or neutral) ones. Negative, harmful edits (or mutations) simply cannot persist for long at all.

Thus, in a digital process such as this, signal noise does accumulate, as in an analog process. The difference, however, is that instead of descending into formless mush, the "noise" that accumulates hardly deserves to be called "noise" at all. Mostly, they are improvements. Of course, this can only work if there is some outside force acting on the system. In the case of Wikipedia, it is a vast public, who only find constructive edits to be useful. In the case of DNA, it is the reproductive success of the bodies it builds. In any situation where there is no outside force, the "noise" really is noise, and not improvements at all, no matter how digital the process. One such example would be hereditary diseases in humans (and of course all animals). They all, without exception* (save those rare few that have newly mutated this generation, which cannot in good conscience be considered hereditary at all) present after the afflicted individual reaches reproductive age. Why is it that we are at such greater risk of so many health problems when we reach old age? Simply because we have already reproduced by then. Natural selection, like a finicky Wikipedia moderator, has swept up all the spills that kill us early. But those beyond its reach hang doggedly on, causing much misery.

* Actually, there can be some exceptions. For instance Haemophilia can be carried into future generations through the female line, only causing harm when it arrives in male bodies. But my general point - that a fatal gene that switches on at age 7 will be swept away by natural selection, whereas one that switches on at age 70 has a much higher chance of becoming frequent in the gene pool - stands.

So, now back to the "master tapes" and the archetypal animals. The Essentialist viewpoint would be that every mutation is necessarily deleterious, and that none should ever persist. Any deviation from "God's rabbit" would be an imperfect rabbit, and God would presumably not want his divine rabbity plan to be eventually lost in signal noise, even digital, naturally selected "noise" that resulted in a fully functioning animal thousands of years hence. It might be a great animal, fantastic at survival (it couldn't be around if it wasn't), but it wouldn't be rabbity enough for Him.

But we know from incontrovertible evidence, from centuries of artificial selection, oftentimes performed as direct experimentation, that animals don't copy some ideal "essence". They (and we, for we are animals) copy our parents. Anybody denying evolution, not just Darwinian evolution with all the trappings, but evolution of any kind, even the "what happens within a species stays within a species" kind of variation I suggested earlier, has to be able to show (or at least formulate some sort of reasonable argument for) why it has not happened. After all, if we can change a species by our own hand using artificial selection, how can we expect natural selection to have done absolutely nothing, even in 10,000 years?

Natural Selection - Friend or Foe?

Perhaps natural selection is not a creationist's enemy, but their friend. Perhaps natural selection can be invoked to explain how animals (and humans) remain the same today as they ever were (if we grant the creationists this viewpoint temporarily for the sake of argument), even in the face of all the mutation that must occur.

In fact, one of Darwin's contemporaries, Edward Blyth, suggested just such a thing. He suggested that natural selection, far from guiding the cumulative mutations toward evolutionary ends, instead strictly penalised any variation at all. So natural selection didn't work to improve, but merely to maintain the status quo.

I find it ironic - given that evolution (in the sense of "change over time") is undeniable, and practically a tautology - that the onus is on creationists to explain how in their view it in fact did not happen to any animal at all, until meddlesome humans began their breeding experiments. And that perhaps the only way to do so is to embrace the theory of natural selection itself, as a kind of universal janitor, mopping up any rabbits that aren't quite up to spec.

As it happens, though, this view of natural selection turns out to be false, and isn't worth clinging to. Why? Because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which basically states that, in any closed system, entropy will always increase. Creationists should be familiar with the Second Law, since many of them love to claim that Darwin's theory violates it.

The Second Law

Of course, they are infantile to even suggest it. They should pause a moment before leveling such an accusation at evolutionists. Think what you are accusing us of! There is a famous quote by Arthur Eddington:

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

By this, Eddington is stressing just how important the Second Law is to scientists. Do creationists really believe that the entire scientific community believes in a theory that violates such a fundamental principle? Ask any scientist if a perpetual motion machine is possible, and they will tell you "No" without any hesitation. There is no way that evolution even comes close to violating the Second Law. How can we be sure? Because every reputable scientist alive supports it. It's iron clad. It would have been rejected with due scorn otherwise, and evolutionists would today be loonies in their garages with deely-bobber hats investigating crop circles and drawing pentagrams.

Blyth's theory, however, would violate it. Short of God's continual intervention, no force can stop the accumulation of mutations in DNA. Bad mutations die, good mutations survive. Eventually, the gene pool is full of nothing but the creme de la creme, a book of happy accidents. By chance, some mutations, no matter how few, are going to be better at surviving. Nothing will stop them from taking over. There is no grand industrial machinery checking rabbits against some ideal template. If DNA can change for the better, to take better advantage of its environment, it's going to. Like a ball rolling down hill, it has to happen. The energy and information necessary to keep everything adhering to some essence, eternally immutable like the Heavens of the ancients - where does it come from? The energy necessary for Darwinian evolution comes from the sun - the math can be done, nothing else is needed. But to be truly unchangeable - to not evolve - that would violate the Second Law.

So, is that what God does? Does he sit up there all day, making sure that everything matches His divine specifications? Even the theists can but guess.

I hope I've shown, in some small way, that evolution, whether complete with all the Neo-Darwinian trappings that I believe in or not, is ineluctable. The history deniers must answer to their own satisfaction how it can not be. You have built your own Ark, and you must deal with the consequences. This is evolution's foot in your door - can you really ignore it, no matter how dilute the form, any longer?

The Meme Cloud, Part 2

Software/Hardware: Commodore 128

Back when I was about 10 or 11 years old, the only computer I had that was user programmable was the Commodore 128 (I went through several models, but the 128D was my favourite, and the longest lasting).

At the time I was addicted to Genesis and Super Nintendo games such as Phantasy Star II, Starfox, and Super Mario Kart. I wanted nothing more than to be able to make my own 16-bit video games.

The Commodore, while woefully underpowered for anyone with 16-bit ambitions, was the closest thing I had. Far from sneering at the primitive machine, I threw myself into learning how to coax anything video-gamey out of it. I tricked it out with a RAM expansion cartridge and set to work.

For the most part I was interested in making graphics, and ended up making more intro and cinema sequences for games than games themselves. I never moved beyond Basic 7.0, squeezing every last drop out of it instead of attempting the seemingly insuperable task of learning the arcane Machine Language.

I have many fond memories of the era, and even if I never accomplished much of note with the Commodore, it helped to shape me into a programmer and video game designer. The abstract lessons I learnt in those early years are still with me, even in the age of Game Maker, when there are almost no graphic, memory, or processor limitations.

TV Series: Mr Bean

I watched Mr Bean because I loved Rowan Atkinson's performance as Blackadder.

Mr Bean is almost the exact antithesis of Blackadder, but equally well-performed and hilarious. While Blackadder is the epitome of sophisticated verbal wit, Mr Bean is the epitome of simple physical comedy.

But it's not your average tired slapstick routine. It's exceptionally clever, like when Bean is brushing his teeth and changing into his suit while driving his mini - with his feet. Even watching the man prepare a sandwich is funny.

Music (Band): They Might Be Giants

I have Sega to thank for turning me on to TMBG, as their song "Mammal" was on a Sampler CD that shipped with the Sega CD to show off its CDA playing capabilities. The song was a true novelty, a dollop of weird in my otherwise Beatles soaked music world. To this day it remains a favourite of mine, and the only song on the sampler that I remember at all.

It wasn't until I began to listen to the Dr Demento show regularly that I encountered TMBG again. That's where I heard most of their hits, like "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", "Why the Sun Shines", "Birdhouse in Your Soul", and "Particle Man". It was great to discover that that little band I had a soft spot for because I associated them with the day I got Sonic CD actually had more to offer.

The first time I ever saw them performing was on "The Screensavers" (which I watched religiously at the time). John & John's charming and quirky personalities (as well as the sheer fact that they were willing to be on a geeky show like The Screensavers) won me over, and I had to become an active fan and follower.

The thing I like the most about TMBG is their ability to make a song out of anything. "Hovering Sombrero", "I've Got a Fang", "Unrelated Thing", "Mink Car", "Edison Museum"... the list goes on and on. No other band expresses that prodigious overbubbling zest for clattering around and having fun making music for music's sake as well or as much.

Music (Artist): Roger Miller

Because Roger Miller seems like something only boring old people would listen to, it may come as some surprise that someone who just cited TMBG can squeeze him in their Meme Cloud. It becomes less surprising, however, when one realises that Disney's animated Robin Hood was how I was first introduced to his music. And less surprising still, because it was also the Dr Demento show that offered further exposure - significantly, "I'm A Nut", one of the best novelty songs ever written. In fact, Roger Miller's song "Whistlestop" was sped up and remixed to create the infamous Hampster Dance, and you can't get much more relevant than that, can you?

In all seriousness, though, his songs can range from wry to bittersweet to uproarious, but they're all sung with such an honest, soul-baring frankness that it plays havoc with your natural laugh / cry instincts.

Not only is this the only country-and-western music I will tolerate, but I actively adore it.

TV Series (Animated): The Adventures of Tintin

Here I'm specifically referring to the Ellipse / Nelvana cartoon. Though I'm sure the original books by Herge are fabulous as well, I can't speak for them because I haven't bothered to read them yet (I have a general dislike for the comic book format that I'll have to overcome first).

The wonderful thing about the cartoon is that it is refreshingly adventurous. Almost all children's adventure cartoons these days are terrible. Not least because of the stringent rules about depictions of violence. With the inability to depict realistic guns, or show any blood whatsoever, all action sequences devolve into mindless bonecracking fistfights, numbing explosions of ever increasing magnitude, and laser weapons that seem programmed to miss. The Japanese are able to make more entertaining adventure cartoons for the same age group, but by the time they reach our shores they more often than not are bowdlerised, impotent (sometimes to the point of being unintelligible, as is the case with some Yu-Gi-Oh! storylines), and poisoned by cringe-inducing dubbing.

But Tintin avoids all of those pitfalls. It harks back to the same era as does Indiana Jones, when men were men (and dogs, aparently, were superhumanly adorable). It's just adventure, plain and simple - with exploration, intrigue, danger, and yes, real guns. There's no cynicism, no "look at how awesome we are", and no gaggle of identical superfriends with 5-foot wide shoulders and the same brand of humour as the House scriptwriter who "wrote" all their lines (you can't tell I hate Justice League Unlimited, right?).

And it also has the best orchestral theme song this side of a John Williams score.

I'm hoping that the new CG movie does at least as well, but I'm not terribly optimistic about it.

Developer Spotlight - Yasushi Yamaguchi

Yasushi Yamaguchi (also known as Judy Totoya, the nickname he was known by during the early days at Sega when their developer's identities were kept secret) is probably best known in Sonic circles for having been the character artist for Sonic 2 and the creator of Miles "Tails" Prower. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Not only did he create and design Tails, he re-designed Sonic for Sonic 2. Sonic's a lot more hip and cool looking in the Sonic 2 character art than in Sonic 1, where he's a lot more like a character from the classic animation era.

He also was responsible for most of the mechanical enemy designs, and Robotnik's new improved Egg Mobile.

And the Tornado, Sonic and Tails' indispensible bi-plane, which has practically become a character in the Sonic series in its own right.

Of course the Tornado is cool - Yamaguchi has always had a strength for mechanical design, as evidenced by the awesome robotic monsters he designed for Phantasy Star II.

His designs are also showcased in the geek-cool Master System game, Cyborg Hunter (Choonsenshi Borgman in Japan).

As well as working on Sonic 2, Yamaguchi was involved to a lesser extent in the creation of Sonic CD. He was a Special Stage designer, and what Special Stages they are!

The expanded data storage capacities of the CD-ROM format allowed Sega to include bonus art in Sonic CD by the designers. Yamaguchi took the opportunity to advertise his new character Tails.

(I love the fact that the licence plate says "Miles"!)

The "See You Next Game!" line probably refers to Sonic 2 - Yamaguchi most likely made the picture before leaving the Sonic CD team to begin work on Sonic 2 in the USA. Sonic CD, however, ended up being released later than Sonic 2, so it seems a little confusing - leading some to speculate that it really refers to Sonic Drift. The car beside Tails helps lend this a little credence, but I don't think there's any proof. It's not the same car design from Drift. Why the car in the first place then? Yamaguchi might have just been expressing his penchant for vehicle design.

If it does in fact refer to Sonic Drift, that might mean Yamaguchi was responsible for the vehicle designs from that game, which would make sense, judging from the style.

Back in the really early days of the Genesis, Sega had a newsletter called SPEC (Sega Players Enjoy Club), drawn by the actual game designers, such as Naoto Ohshima, Rieko Kodama, Tohru Yoshida, and of course, Yamaguchi. They all went under nicknames when drawing the issues, and Yamaguchi went by Judy Totoya (for reasons opaque to me).

Yamaguchi sometimes got cover duty, and he really did a good job, as with this Shinobi cover.

Why wasn't Sega Visions this awesome?

But Yamaguchi's coolest contributions to the SPEC magazine were his Phantasy Star manga. They were serialised, and sadly didn't get to conclude, because SPEC was discontinued. The "Basic Saga" was a humourous retelling of the story of the Master System Phantasy Star. The characters are drawn in a hilarious chibi style, and Myau looks a little like Tails...

The "Outside Saga" told of further adventures of Alis and Lutz outside the Algol system. It was drawn with a more serious tone. Seeing it makes me ache for a full-blown Phantasy Star anime series from the early 90's, but no such thing exists. Now I'm really despressed.

Yamaguchi was reunited with Rieko Kodama on Magic Knight Rayearth, but hasn't been credited since the Sega Saturn era. Where has he been? Today's games sorely miss the coolness that his personality and pen could offer, Sonic games in particular.

Yasushi Yamaguchi article at Sonic Retro

Yasushi Yamaguchi article at Wikipedia

SPEC scans were gotten from Gazeta De Algol

Sonic Genesis Rant

You know how when people get really mad, they write really vitriolic letters, but throw them away instead of sending them? Directly after playing Sonic Genesis for the first time (years ago), I typed something like that, but never posted it anywhere. I've since calmed down, of course, and feel that criticism should be constructive. If I'm to point out its flaws, I might as well be helping others to avoid them at the same time. But it's still mildly entertaining, so I've recreated my original rant here.

Ah, Sega. Can you stoop any lower? After re-releasing Sonic the Hedgehog 1 for every system imaginable (Saturn, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Playstation, PC, Cellphone, Wii Virtual Console, etc), you still feel as though you can continue to milk the poor game for yet more cash. Especially since the new games aren’t selling very well….

Forget that you missed the 15th anniversary by seven months, forget that we’ll have to pay $19.95 for the thing (I remember buying Mega Collection for the same price and getting 12 games, plus a load of nifty extras. Funny that), and forget that it’s going to be released for five bucks on the Wii 2 days later. Sonic 1 is still the best 2D action game ever made. Ever. It changed the industry, changed our lives, and changed the world. It spawned a thousand rip-offs (Oscar, Rocket Knight Adventures, Gex, Rocky Rodent, Aero the Acrobat, Crash Bandicoot), and for a short time one couldn’t turn around without bumping into an animal mascot over-brimming with ‘tude.

More importantly, the vast, unwieldy genius of one Yuji Naka would make the game more unique still – never before had we seen such brilliant programming, such tight physics, such fluid motion and control. In a time when video characters were running at fixed speeds across flat boxy ground, and jumping one block up and across no matter what their inertia, Sonic was running over lush hills and around gravity-defying loops, gaining momentum by rolling down hill, rebounding off of objects, drifting through the air like a discus, and of course, running at improbable speeds (all with realistic acceleration, friction, gravity, and collision detection) and looking cool doing it. Very few, indeed probably no, games at the time had pushing, tipping, waiting, and halting animations. Certainly none had such style. Suddenly here was a game where a cartoon character was soaring through fantastic, vibrant worlds, and all to some of the catchiest music to ever be written, for a video-game or otherwise. Never again would the populace be satisfied by notched hockey pucks or monochrome spaceships. A new era had begun.

A game so revolutionary, so infinitely groundbreaking and fun, must surely still be all these things, even in today's era of Metroid Primes and Windwakers. So why not release it one more time, on the world’s coolest handheld system, where it can keep some of the other greatest games of all time company? Where it can share the hallowed halls with Minish Cap, Zero Mission, Superstar Saga, Chain of Memories, Empire of Dreams, and its flashy brethren, the Sonic Advances. Where a whole new generation of young, impressionable children can discover the joy that is Sonic the Hedgehog….

Yeah, right. That’s assuming a single soul left working for Sega has any brains. Sadly, they’ve all either left, or are still celebrating National Opposite Month. “Sonic Genesis,” as they so maddeningly called the game, will do none of these things. Instead, a thousand unsold copies will linger in every retail outlet until somebody takes them out with last year’s Christmas tree and buries them like the nuclear waste that they are. And if they have any sense, they’ll shoot each one with three rounds from a high-calibre weapon for good measure.

Why is Sonic Genesis so bad, you ask, if Sonic 1 is so darn good? How can Sega, no matter how bad they are at making new Sonic games, possibly fubar a freaking re-release?

Simple. They’re Sega – it’s what they live for. Corporate restructuring, firing all their good talent, and methodically, no, surgically removing every last good thing about Sonic the Hedgehog and Phantasy Star. It’s their primary goal, just like Microsoft wants to rule the world and Nintendo wants to embarrass you in public (not even mentioning Sony’s fiendish plot to upset the world economy!)

I will now, just as methodically and surgically, list every single flaw I’ve found in Sonic Genesis, every glaring oversight that screams sloppiness, laziness and negligence. Read them and squirm. And may Sega be struck by bolts of alpha-blended lightning for not fixing each and every one of them. They deserve every scorch mark they get on their sorry hides for, yet again, screwing their customers and leading a whole new generation of children to believe that Sonic 1 must have sucked. Those children will some day be the ones who run our businesses, our television stations, the United Nations – and they’ll think Sonic 1 sucked. Oh, Sega, you make me so mad!

And just to make sure that we can never find it in our hearts to forgive them, they go and do the unthinkable. They say, on the back of the packaging, “A perfect port of the original that started it all!” You can be crapulous, Sega, and I’ll forgive you. But when you are crapulous and say you are not, clearly I can no longer give you the time of day.

If Sonic Genesis is a “perfect port,” I’m Sasquatch.

I'm not sure the back of the packaging really says what I claimed it did. I must have seen it in advertising for the game at the time and got mixed up as to the source.

P.S. I'm not Sasquatch. Really.

The Nitpicker's Guide to Sonic Genesis - Part I

Hello again, Code Ninjas, and welcome to the first ever Code of the Ninja special, The Nitpicker's Guide to Sonic Genesis - Part I.

Some Code Ninjas are a disgrace to their title - they fail spectacularly at our subtle art. Perhaps they lack the necessary commitment or training. Or, perhaps they are not entirely to blame, and the reason for their failure is a lack of time, or budget.

Either way, the results of their efforts suffer terrible scars, belying the shoddy and haphazard code underneath. This is unacceptable, for the Code Ninja should be swift, efficient, and invisible.

The outstanding example of such an unsuccessful mission is Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis, for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. It is supposed to be a port of the 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), but you'd barely know it. Whereas the original Sonic the Hedgehog is an exemplar of good programming by a true Goemon of code, this embarrassing port is a shambles, infamous for being the worst Sonic game ever. In fact, it has a strong claim to be the worst programmed video game ever (a distinction a certain Bubsy Bobcat is used to enjoying).

In this special series of Code of the Ninja, I aim to draw attention to each of Sonic Genesis's plenitude of flaws, with special emphasis on their likely causes. It is one thing to notice that Sonic Genesis is bad - it is entirely another to find out why. It is a testament to the degree of the abject failure of the Sonic Genesis programmers that the likely causes of the many glitches in the game are not opaque.

To be sure, I cannot be 100 percent certain of any of the causes I will cite. I do not have access to the programmers' code, nor the inner workings of their brains (and I'm grateful, for they would assuredly be terrifying), but I can make educated guesses. As a Ninja whose current mission plants him squarely in the wilds of his own Sonic engine, I am in a better position than most to make such observations.

As in the infancy of the discipline of taxonomy, before the advent of the field of genetics, one simply looked at the external features of a lifeform when classifying it. The underlying coded information, the recipe for those external features, was invisible to taxonomists at the time, just as Sonic Genesis's code is unavailable to me.

They made mistakes, certainly, especially because of the wonderful yet maddening effects of convergent evolution, but plenty of good work was done, enough to cement the endeavor as respectable.

It is in this spirit that I undertake nitpicking Sonic Genesis. Whether all of my evaluations turn out to be true or false, I hope many of them will be incising insights, which will arm inchoate Code Ninjas and help them avoid the same traps and pitfalls (some of which the Sonic Genesis programmers' feet are still sticking out of, accompanied by contented digestive noises).

As a bonus, I will be pointing out some extra flaws each time which were not the result of programming.

Code Flaw #001: Sonic is not synched to moving platforms

Original:

GBA:

Programming moving platforms in a video game is actually relatively easy. When the character object detects a platform, it remembers the ID of the platform. From then on (until the character falls or jumps off the platform), the platform's motion is simply added to the character's.

Sounds easy enough. But a lot of beginners (including me, back in the day) are surprised to discover upon running their game, that the character's movement is not perfectly synchronised with that of the platform.

It turns out that it all relies on the order in which the code is performed. Every frame of the game (and there are usually 60 per second), the objects perform their code. But they can't do this at the same time - they queue up and do it one after another.

If the platform moves first, then Sonic follows suit. Then the screen is refreshed, and the player sees Sonic stuck fast to the platform. All is well.

But what if the platform comes later in the queue than Sonic? Then, Sonic moves based on the speed or position that the platform had in the last step. Then the platform moves to its new position. Then the screen is refreshed. The player sees Sonic juttering about the general vicinity of the platform, but not firmly atop it. Sonic is lagging behind, basing his position on variables that are one frame out of date!

Unless all moving solids complete their code before the character object's routine is run, this will be a problem. In Game Maker, this would amount to putting the platform routines in the "Begin Step" event.

Apparently the "programmers" of Sonic Genesis were too rushed or lazy to bother with this simple fact, and so they fail to achieve decent moving platform physics - something that early NES games can do in their sleep. It's pretty pathetic, when you think about it.

Bonus Flaw #001: The background in the title screen isn't animated

Not only is there no paralax, and the clouds don't blow by on the breeze, but the waterfalls and sparkles on the surface of the lake are totally frozen! The GBA can palette cycle, so there seems to be no explanation for this besides sheer sloppiness.

Bonus Flaw #002: There is no shrapnel when crushing through walls

Yes, folks - the segments of rock (or metal, in Starlight Zone) simply disappear, accompanied by a lame "poit" sound effect that is nothing like the original. I'm guessing that the 6 month delay still wasn't enough time to implement a few bits of shrapnel flying away.

Well, that's it for now. The normal Code of the Ninja will not be interrupted by the Nitpicker's Guide, so I'll see you next time.

Happy coding!

The Mobius Fallacy

UPDATE: This article has been featured at Saturday Morning Sonic, so you could zoom over and read it there instead.

Welcome to the first Pernicious Fallacies post. In this series I hope to shed some light on certain issues, and reverse some of the damage done by the spread of misinformation and well-meaning "theories". The subject will most often be Sonic the Hedgehog and its development, but at times I may branch out.

Today's Pernicious Fallacy is "The Mobius Fallacy". It is best summed up by quoting one of its carriers, the Concept Mobius website:

Concept Mobius:

In fact, Mobius itself is all but a simple misinterpretation on SOA's part. Let me take you back to the year of 1992, when Sonic 2 was still in the makes and interviews and press releases were filling the media of the blue blur…

Back when Sonic 2 was released, which was basically the impending of one of the most prestigious video games of all time, many interviews and many magazine articles were published prior to its release. One of which was a Sega Visions issue where Yuji Naka was interviewed, and he mentions the word 'Mobius.'

Yuji Naka was not making a reference to a planet, but instead an obstacle. A Mobius strip is a mathematical testament of geometry that is continuous one-sided surface that can be formed from a rectangular strip by rotating one end 180° and attaching it to the other end. Sound familiar? Exactly. Those corkscrew roadways in Emerald Hill Zone were Mobius Strips.

The Mobius strip (right) is what the nifty corkscrew highways in Emerald Hill Zone (left) were based off of.

Yuji Naka meant to point out the Mobius strips. Because hey, we all know he is bad at English — the only time he uses good English is when he is kissing an American car salesman's ass to haggle down a shiny new Ford GT. But other than that? Bupkes.

This little misinterpretation stuck with Sega of America, so it was thus morphed into what we know today as Mobius - the world that Sonic comes from in the comics, AoStH TV series, SatAM TV series, and the Sonic Underground TV series.

Here is the offending quote from the Yuji Naka interview in question:

And here is the entire interview at Sonic Retro.

Now that you have a clear and colourful picture of the Mobius Fallacy, it is time to dismantle it.

Firstly, the Mobius Fallacy is based on two independent precepts, which must be dealt with separately.

1. As a result of this interview, the word Mobius was applied to Sonic's homeworld.

The name Mobius for Sonic's homeworld was in use long before this interview was conducted. For example, the Promo Comic from 1991:

(Promo Comic article at Sonic Retro)

And the "Sonic Bible" (an internal document used by Sega of America), dated June 24th, 1991:

(Sonic Bible thread at Sonic Retro)

Now, it is entirely possible that the name Mobius was given to Sonic's homeworld by SoA due to the loops and twists in the Zones. But it certainly was not due to any utterance of Yuji Naka's in this particular Sega Visions interview. The very notion that SoA would mine an interview for ideas on what to name their planet is silly anyway, even if it had not come too late.

2. Yuji Naka said the word Mobius, referring to the corkscrews, but was misunderstood / mistranslated.

Why did Yuji Naka say Mobius? It's a SoA term, after all, not official in the Japanese Sonic canon.

First, there is no proof he ever did. Many interviews with Japanese game developers are conducted through a translator, who could easily have said Mobius for the Americans' benefit. Furthermore, even if there was no translator and Yuji Naka was speaking English (which there is, to my knowledge, no evidence for), he could have used the word himself, knowing that he was speaking for an American publication. We must bear in mind that Sonic 2 was developed in Palo Alto, California, and his American colleagues perhaps used the name Mobius on a daily basis during development. It would not be hard for Yuji to employ the name himself, without believing it to be Sonic's home at the end of the day.

Remember, in the interview, the name Robotnik (not Eggman) is mentioned as well. Similar to Mobius, the name Robotnik is not canonical in Japan (at least not until Sonic Adventure 2, when they finally capitulated, perhaps because Professor Gerald Eggman and Maria Eggman sounded really stupid).

Yuji Naka, Sega Visions:

We wanted one of the characters in the game to be egg-shaped, so we created Robotnik. It was a great character, but since it couldn't be the main character, we made him the bad guy.

So why did Yuji say "Robotnik"? See above - the same points come to bear on this as why he said "Mobius" - if, again, he even did.

This actually suggests a new, parodical "Robotnik Fallacy":

Hypothetical Theory-tard:

In fact, Robotnik is nothing more than a stupid translation error on Sega of America's part.

What Yuji Naka really was referring to was Metal Sonic. Robot Sonic, Robot-nic, Robotnik! After all, he's a college dropout who can't string two English words together sensibly.

Ever since, mindless buffoons in the West have been parroting the mistake, and they think he's called Robotnik!

Ahem...

As for the whole "translation error" idea (the idea that he was referring to the corkscrews in Emerald Hill, but was somehow misinterpreted), it is certainly possible. But it is not very probable.

Read the interview. Yuji Naka is not vague or ambiguous in any way throughout. The language used is clear, informative, and precise.

Yuji Naka, Sega Visions

...the new Mobius worlds are brighter, crisper, and much more detailed.

The quote itself is crystal-clear (BTW, in ye olden days, it was quite common to call individual levels in a video game, "worlds").

To assume that somehow a reference to an object can be construed into a sentence of that nature reminds me of Bible interpretation. Read with no bias, you'd have a hard time believing that sentence in any way referred to a corkscrew in the first zone.

I hypothesise that, since a screenshot of the corkscrew is featured prominently on the page with the interview, a strong subconscious connection has arisen. When casting the mind's eye back to the only mention of Mobius associated with Yuji Naka, hovering in view is a big ol' page-spanning screenshot of the corkscrew. Check the caption of the screenshot, however, and you'll see it clearly and correctly labeled as a "corkscrew".

Bear in mind that the corkscrews in Emerald Hill bear no legitimate resemblence to a true Mobius strip, either. The very definition of a Mobius strip is an object with one continuous side. The corkscrews in Emerald Hill do not connect to themselves, but are stretched from cliff to cliff, and have two distinct sides. To claim, as Concept Mobius does, that a Mobius strip was their inspiration, is wild speculation, unwisely stated as if it were fact.

Actually, the entire quote from Concept Mobius is arrogant, insulting, and peppered with opinion masqerading as fact:

Concept Mobius:

Yuji Naka was not making a reference to a planet, but instead an obstacle.

This is stated baldly as fact, not as his opinion. Would a simple "perhaps" have killed the guy?

Concept Mobius:

A Mobius strip is a mathematical testament of geometry that is continuous one-sided surface that can be formed from a rectangular strip by rotating one end 180° and attaching it to the other end. Sound familiar? Exactly. Those corkscrew roadways in Emerald Hill Zone were Mobius Strips.

Actually they are clearly not, by the very description just offered! They are twisted far more than 180°, and do not attach to themselves. The corkscrews are no more Mobius strips than the Eiffel Tower is a rabbit - it is incredible that this claim was made by someone who ostensibly has a working understanding of what a Mobius strip is!

Concept Mobius:

The Mobius strip is what the nifty corkscrew highways in Emerald Hill Zone were based off.

This is more fair to say - they are not actually Mobius strips, but could well have been inspired by them. But again, it is stated as bald fact. How does he know what inspired the level artists? Has he spoken with them? Again, this is pure opinion.

Concept Mobius:

Yuji Naka meant to point out the Mobius strips. Because hey, we all know he is bad at English — the only time he uses good English is when he is kissing an American car salesman's ass to haggle down a shiny new Ford GT. But other than that? Bupkes. This little misinterpretation stuck with Sega of America, so it was thus morphed into what we know today as Mobius...

How does he know this is a misinterpretation or a mistranslation? Was he there when the interview was conducted? Does he have a taped recording, does he even speak Japanese? Where is the evidence for these claims?

Also, this is insulting the man who developed the games this person's site is dedicated to. And hey, isn't the site called Concept Mobius?

Moving on....

Why do people feel so strongly about this Mobius Fallacy? Well, there are two sides.

On the one hand, for people who wish to establish Mobius firmly as Sonic's home planet in all regions' canon, this may be (and only may be) the only time the name has been uttered by the original creator's own lips. Believing this lends the name Mobius more credence, and one can see why territorial fans might cling doggedly to it. We know better, of course - Earth is Sonic's home in Japan, and always has been (the Tails Adventure Japanese Manual explicitly mentions the South Pacific, for just one example).

On the other hand, for people who hate the SoA canon and the Archie universe, maintaining that Mobius is just a stupid mistake that doesn't really mean anything probably makes them feel superior. It de-legitimises Mobius and makes the Western canon seem inferior. But we know better about this, also - Mobius is as official as anything in the Japanese canon. Sonic was intended to have a different backstory for each region, so that conflicting cultural preferences wouldn't limit his popularity.

In summation:

1. The corkscrews are demonstrably not Mobius strips.

2. It is extremely unlikely that a mistranslation occured.

3. Sega of America did not mine an interview from the future for ideas on what to name their planet.

A healthy Sonic community must challenge the current views, and overturn them when new evidence comes to light. Continuing to repeat, or support, old, unproven claims only takes our attention from new challenges and mysteries that need to be solved.

P.S.

There is one clear instance of the corkscrews of Emerald Hill being referred to as Mobius strips. It is from Sega Force, July 1992, talking about Sonic 2 as it was premiered at the CES that year on May 28th. From what is said about it, it sounds like the build that was shown off was the Alpha (just Emerald Hill, with Starlight's BGM), or very similar.

(here's the full scan)

We can be pretty certain that this guy is referring to the corkscrew. "...Must be negotiated at full tilt to keep Sonic from falling off" - the corkscrews are the only thing that fits that description. However, this instance emphatically does not legitimise calling them Mobius strips. Just because one person makes a mistake does not mean that everyone else should copy them.

Why was the mistake made? Here's a bit of a new theory: Instead of, as the Mobius Fallacy suggests, the obstacle name being applied to the whole planet, it's the exact opposite. The Sega Force guy could have heard Mobius said at the show floor and tied it with the corkscrew. I know how confused things can get in the aftermath of a show like CES or E3. Furthermore, gaming magazines of this era are not known for their stellar accuracy or high-quality journalism. This is, of course, only speculation.

Special Thanks:

Sonic Retro, where I posted a topic on this subject

Dean Sitton, for pointing out that Robotnik was mentioned in the interview

and Concept Mobius, for such a vivid example of the fallacy

"Project Needlemouse" - 2D Sonic in 2010

Sonic fan community:

"SEGA, YOU **** UP EVERY GAEM!"
"SEGA CAN'T MAKE **** THESE DAYS!"
"SEGA YOU SUCK ****, ****, AND **************!"

Sega:

"We're making a 2D Sonic game!"

Sonic fancommunity:

"ZOMG! RETURN OF SONIC!"
"HAVE MY CHILDRENS, SEGA!"
"I NEED A NEW PANTS!"

2D does not equal Sega answering all of our prayers. I'm going to hold all speculation until I see actual gameplay, but the announcement of a new Sonic game is nonetheless exciting news.

There is a related interview at GameSpot, as well.