February 12th marks Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. Cheers! He has taught us one important thing: The strong shall devour the meek's reward.
Whenever i get a package of plain M&Ms, i make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, i held M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, i apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser" (like my pet rabbit), and i eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round. I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.
Occasionally i will get a mutation, a candy that is misshaped, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on the very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength in this way, the species continues to adapt to it's environment.
When i reach the end of the pack, i am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, i pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to:
M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc.
Hackettstown, NJ
17840-1503 U.S.A.
along with a 3x5 card with the words "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes." printed on it.
I expect grant money and with this i shall continue my hypothesis with experiments and studies. I shall have a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion. There can be only one.
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4 comments:
Another interesting post Alan!
Here's an alternate view ... :)
I'm inclined to think that the criteria you select for 'fitness' in M&Ms are highly subjective (what you deem to be Significant perhaps ;)
My criteria would be thus:
An M&M's mission in life is to be eaten. This creates an addiction for M&Ms in the 'host' species, compelling them to go out and buy more M&Ms, thus aiding the propagation of the species of candy called M&Ms.
So in terms of evolutionary theory, any M&M that isn't eaten for any reason is a dysfunctional mutation, and wouldn't qualify as an evolutionary winner in my view ...
All The Best!
(Oh, and hurrah! for Charles Darwin - though I believe he is dead at the moment).
Good point. :D
M&Ms want to be devoured, the easier the better. Because natural selection works the opposite in candies than in the animal kingdom.
We still must celebrate the birth of the man who put his name up for slander in the name of science. Oh, how the disagreeable hate him with a passion.
I always love hearing from you daleks!
Cheers Alan :)
By the way, Thank Q! for following the dalek blog.
Though I should maybe point out it might be better to follow the one billion daleks blog, rather than the Blue Moon blog.
The Blue Moon blog is a subsidiary blog and I only post general chitchat in there - the bulk of dalek posts are elsewhere, in other blogs (yes, they are everywhere - ooo-er!)
But I notify ALL new posts at the top of the one billion daleks blog, so if you follow that one you'll be notified of every new post irrespective of which subsidiary blog that post appears in.
Hope you can follow all that!
"I love cheese! I love daleks!" <:3=)~~
agreed young mouse. agreed :]
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