Since Erika isn’t a sufficiently big girl to defend her own field of science from a game designer with no academic or scientific credentials at all, I’m reliably informed that she’s going to have DOCTOR ZACH HANCOCK white-knight for her and offer his no doubt Very Serious and Very Credentialed Critique of Probability Zero.
That’s right, THE DOCTOR. ZACH HANCOCK! I’m sure you’re all aquiver with dread and awe.
And since Dr. Hancock, like the intrepid Brian, is a POPULATION GENETICIST, it should be very amusing to watch him demonstrate that he doesn’t know the first thing about the math that serves as the sand beneath his science. But I’m anticipating we’re going to hear all about ISLANDS and DEMES and STEPPING STONES, which should not only offer us an expanded vocabulary, but entirely new ways of amusing ourselves at the expense of midwits in labcoats who never realized there was rather more to understanding science than memorizing the textbook.
It truly amazes me that these people never, ever, stop to consider who and what they’re dealing with. First, they claim that I’m a white supremacist… and they think that’s some sort of sign that I don’t know the math? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall a certain group of Aryan supremacists who were very, very good with math, so much so that the US science community imported a whole collection of them in the middle of the 20th Century for one reason or another.
Second, they know I’m a game designer. Not only that, but a game designer who is very heavily involved with artificial intelligence. And yet, they keep being surprised that I know what they’re going to say on the subject before they say it. Which is amusing, considering that I can already tell what Zach Hanson will have for lunch next Thursday with a 87 percent chance of success.