Science, programming, life and everything

Well I promised myself (and consequently my blogger housemate – GJOB) that I would keep this blog professional, and so not be commenting on current affairs, or even games – I know theres a games category but that was for another reason. But after watching the debacle that was the Alan Titchmarsh interview with Tim Ingham, Julie Peasgood, and Kelvin MacKenzie talking about how games are corrupting our society, I felt it couldn’t be ignored.

For those of you who haven’t seen it here’s the youtube video – watch it then read the rest of this post.

First of all, the comment made by Peasgood about the statistics which she stated as fact were provided to the public in the wrong way, I’m sure at the time the report was released it was not sensationalised by the scientists involved. She made no reference to the people who undertook the study, the journal the study was reported in, or even how the study was conducted for example what games were considered as violent? Questions should be asked, and rightly so, as to how they gauged the level of ‘violent tendencies’ in these children. Also as an aside what parent in their right mind would agree to a study whereby they allow their children to play these violent games?

The audience in the TV studio was out for blood, the booing on the mention of the Byron report was disgusting (I won’t mention any opinion as to whether I feel the report was justified or not, because I have not read it, and so cannot make a valid opinion, and don’t want to appear hypocritical). Do the general public have no respect for governmental research anymore, and is this an indication of the state of public mind with respect to research – with all the so called ‘scandals’ recently its hard not to go someway to understanding this viewpoint. However it is also important for the general public to realise that all of the research undertaken in this country (and in all other countries by reputable scientists) should be respected – but also should not be taken as fact. One of the first things you realise when studying physics to a high level is that everything we think we know as fact is actually a mathematical model of what we believe is happening, whereby every time scientists discover something new then more often than not models have to be updated. But I digress, back to the topic at hand.

It is time for television to take account for the level of truth of the information given to the general public, we now live in ‘the Sun’ times where the majority of people’s opinions and facts come verbatim from such poor (in my opinion) news aggregates such as the Sun, and Daily Mail. The problem is that statistics provided as fact on television shows are taken onboard as fact by the viewers. Has Peasgood ever even read the article in question, or has she just read and spouted the information from another news source? Alas the simplest answer would be for people to form their own opinions about news, and come to their own conclusions, however I fear that unless we change the way children are taught in schools then this will never happen.

I’d like to congratulate Tim for keeping so cool under such a blatant attack on the games industry by people who actually have no right to be discussing the industry in such an open (and biased) forum. The one interesting fact that seemed to be totally glossed over in the discussion (obviously they didn’t have any pre-prepared answers for it) was the simple fact that only 1 in 20 games could be considered to be overly violent – that means that 19 out of every 20 games created is a non-violent game suitable for minors. Which, as Tim rightly stated, parents should be buying and playing with their children! Some of the best times in a child’s early years could be playing games with their parents. Gaming is now mainstream, the next generation of parents will be people who remember this furore over violent games, and will understand the importance of protecting their children in the right way, by understanding and playing games with their children. However, right now it is important to remember gaming is a mainstream media, with mainstream age certificates!

With these certificates and the collaboration of all the games retailers it should be no longer possible for a minor to purchase a game rated above their age. I for one would be happy to have to produce ID when buying a video game rated 18, just like I have to do to buy alcohol – Challenge 21 should extend far beyond the reaches of the bars and clubs. It is no longer right to villainise the games industry for these games reaching the hands of minors, the games retailers cannot be blamed as they have measures in place to stop the sales, so who is left? Obviously that just leaves the parents and the children themselves. We cannot expect children to suddenly realise violent games are wrong, so that just leave the parents. How many parents have bought their children GTA? Even after all the bad press that the game series has received I believe that most parents still gloss over the big 18 sticker on the outside of the game, believing that no game could rival the sense of horror or violence found in most films. It’s time to see the sticker and realise, maybe I shouldn’t be buying this game for my child!

The onus now passes to the parents or legal guardians of the child – no more should parents be using the excuse of ignorance. It is time that if parents want to start protecting them from so called ‘morally corrupt’ media then they should start by stepping up to the plate, and stopping children from seeing inappropriate material, and buying them inappropriate video games.