Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Actually, I suppose the machine could be used to demonstrate evolution in several ways -- including how I'm demonstrably unfit to survive in the same environment with chocolate or anything labeled with the word "nougat".   But I'm particularly interested in how evolution works on the things inside the machine, the effects of natural selection on the bags of chips, packs of donuts, candy bars and miscellaneous meat by-products that constitute America's snack habit.

    Famous    Pork     Frito's   Reg.    
    Amos      Rinds              Lays

    Fudge     Pop      Chips     Chewy
    Brownie   Corn     Ahoy      Ahoy

    Cheetos   Rold     Ruffles   Cheese
    Crunch    Gold               Nips

    Baked     Potato   Doritos   Redhot
    Lays      Skins              Riplets

    Hershey   Kit      Snickers  Almond
    Bar       Kat                Joy

    Ho        Mini     Honey     Oreos
    Hos       Donuts   Bun
      {fig. 1: the primordial snack pond}

This is the vending machine primeval, stocked with fats, salts, and sugars of all sorts.  Of course, this is only half the ecosystem.  Lurking outside the glass are packs of Americanus chubbis, slavering to make their attack (the hunting attack involves distracting the prey with several shiny coins then pouncing on the vulnerable buttons).

Many of the snacks lurking in this primitive land are completely unprotected.  They're cheap, and display colors that the predators recognize as containing the tastiest mix of sweetened alkaloids.  These snacks die quickly, leaving less familiar or less appetizing snacks behind.

So far, you might be saying "hey, that's not evolution," and you'd be right.  There is some natural selection going on (Hey, people are natural.  Potatoes are natural.  Even Funions are... made from elements that naturally occur in the crust of the Earth without the intervention of an atomic reactor.  I think.), but there's no real demonstration of change over time.  If all that happened from here on out was more of the same, it would be a pretty boring example.

But wait!  The hand of unpredictability is present in the form of a lackadaisical vending company employee.  Rather than replacing each item that's eaten with more of the same kind, the guy just drops in something else that fits the slot, more or less at random.  When questioned, the God of the vending machine maintained "hey, people get bored with the same old stuff."  Real reason on further questioning?  "Hey, I never keep track of what's in there."

No matter what the reason, this behavior seeds the vending machine ecology with just the right sort of "genetic drift," allowing all sorts of interesting phenomena to emerge.

Let's look back on the vending machine after a couple of months.  

     BBQ       Pork     Fritos     Reg.
     Fritos    Rinds               Lays

     Kettle    Pop      Ruffles    Chewy
     Chips     Corn                Ahoy

     Cheetos   Rold     Baked      Cheetos
     Crunch    Gold     Lays       Puffs

     Snyder    Potato   Vinegar    Redhot
     Chips     Skins    Chips      Riplets

     Hershey   Mounds   Clark      Peanut
     Bar                Bar        Brittle

     Choc      Mini     Dunkin     Raspbry
     Donuts    Donuts   Stix       Snoballs

     {fig. 2: The Snacktaceous Age}

Okay, things are starting to happen.  Our initial snack set up (call it just after the Calorian Explosion), included representatives of the major "phyla" that would exist throughout snack history: chips, bars, pastries, spongy things, and things made from pigs.    Revisiting the machine in this later age shows the same groups still persist, but at the species level we're seeing some change.

One trend that's evident through out the ecosystem is the broad reduction in the family Cookidae.  Both the Amos genus and a member of the Ahoy genus of chocolate chip cookie are no longer found.  Along with them has vanished the single representative of the related family Brownidae.  Clearly, the predators have a sweet tooth.  The lone survivor of this group is a single species of Ahoy, in this case the chewy species.  What made this snack the lone hold out in its family?  Protective adaptation.  In the case of this species, the stiff foil packaging kept getting jammed in the machine, assuring that predators were often frustrated in their efforts.  

Other species have come and gone.  A large percentage of the Candybaridae family has been replaced.  Though the plain species of Hershey's has limped through into this age, the Kit Kat and Snickers species have proven woefully unfit.  Indeed, no matter how often new populations of these species wander into the plains of vending, they were soon eliminated.  Instead, this new age has brought with it two forces to be reckoned with: the Clark Bar and Peanut Brittle.  As we shall see, these two will become fixtures of the Candybaridae, living fossils that outlast all around them.

At the bottom of the machine, the predatory sweet tooth has also been hard on the broad class of spongy things.  Among these rapid changes, the mini donut species also proves to be a survivor.  Why?  Because it takes more of the silver coins to distract the mini donut and lure it away from its pack.  Predators have concentrated on more easily obtained prey.

     BBQ        Reg.     Fritos     Sour Cm
     Fritos     Lays                Chips

     Baked      Rold     Baked      Ruffles
     Lays       Gold     Lays

     Lance      Cheese   Baked      Cheetos
     Chips      Its      Lays       Puffs

     Snyder     Potato   Vinegar    Redhot
     Chips      Skins    Chips      Riplets

     Reese      Baby     Clark      Peanut
     Cup        Ruth     Bar        Brittle

     Oreos      Ding     Choc       Raspbry
                Dongs    Donuts     Snoballs

     {fig. 3: The Snacktocene Period}

In this more recent view, we find new changes in our ecosystem.  At first, it may seem that many of the niches among the Chip superfamily have gone unchanged, but the altered positions of many members shows that there has been turnover.  Local groups have gone extinct, only to be replaced with new populations from outside.  In the Candybaridea the Mounds species has proven unfit, and the Hershey has finally left the scene.  The Clark Bar and Peanut Brittle have solidified their hold in this group, becoming nearly invulnerable.  In fact, this study shows the average Clark Bar to have a life expectancy roughly equal to  "G" class star.

Of the spongy things, only the Raspberry Snoballs have survived.  This species has developed a unique survival mechanism, excreting a reddish goo that lines their outer wrapper and drives away even the most hungry predator.

So what's the point?
I'm overweight and obsessive about the contents of my candy machine.  Okay, that's true, but it's not the point.

The point is that you don't have to wait millions of years or study genetics to see evolution at work.  The same processes that drove the development of Saber-toothed cats, three-toed sloths, and even Kansas Republicans, are visible in many of the things you see around you every day.

In biology, genetic changes provide the raw stock from which adaptation occurs.  In the vending machine, the marketing guys decide to put out a white chocolate Reese's Cup which is repellent to anyone with taste buds.  Same thing.

The "Intelligent Design" mavens frequently turn to the mechanical world for their (stupid) examples, but in truth, even among items that were designed with some supposed intelligence, the processes of selection, variation, and adaptation are present.  Whether biological, mechanical, or edible, any persistant system is subject to change over time.  Darwin understood the struggle for fitness in biological systems without the knowledge of genetic variation.  Marketers must seve their concept of fitness as much as the genes of any fruit fly.  It's there in models of automobiles, in the frozen food section at your supermarket, and on the T-shirt shelves at The Gap.  Some force provides variation, some other force exerts selective pressure.  The net result is a population that drifts, twists, and changes over time.

If you're having trouble talking to someone about evolution, talk to them about the new fall fashions.  Evolutionary forces are everywhere.  And if anyone insists to you that our systems run only on intelligent design, ask them about the meteoric rise, and abupt extinction, of the species Suitus Leisuris.