Today in my Evolution course I began my expanded discussion of the crux of adaptive evolution, natural selection. In introducing the details of natural selection I began, as Darwin did in On the Origin of Species, by likening the mechanism to that of artificial selection. In the former, the ever-changing environment "selects" who will survive and reproduce, while in the latter, human preference is the arbitrator of what characters are passed on to the next generation. So I thought it appropriate when today I received a link to a post about M&M fitness. It's pretty entertaining, so read it if you get a chance!
3 comments:
I just read the M&M article, and it cracked me up! (no pun intended) It's such an interesting way of experimenting with natural selection. Now I can't wait to go buy a bag of M&Ms to try it for myself! ~Jess ;)
It seems M&Ms are the way to teach evolution. I have another M&M experiment that teaches natural selection:
One October, two of the teachers in our program had brought in candy for us to snack on; one brought a giant bag of M&Ms and the other brought a bag of candy corn. Somehow, they both got dumped into the same bowl that sat on Dennis' desk, and we would all help ourselves to candy throughout the days. One day, I noticed that the only candy left in the bowl was candy corn, orange M&Ms and yellow M&Ms.
My theory -- nobody likes candy corn, so when faced with a bowl in which it is integrated with M&Ms, one will actively seek the M&Ms. The orange and yellow blend in with their environment, escape detection, and survive, passing their tasty genes on to their little M&M offspring (ah, if only M&Ms could breed).
You can duplicate this experiment easily by placing M&Ms on a flat cookie tray along with candy corn. To be a true scientist, make sure you have equal amounts of each color M&M; I usually do 50 of each color. The same goes for candy corn -- make sure the total number of candy corn equals the total number of M&Ms. The flat cookie sheet ensures that each candy has an equal chance of being chosen (versus some being buried at the bottom of the bowl).
Ok, now simply breeze into the classroom and ask the class to please pass the tray around the room and take three M&Ms each. Don't tell them that this is an experiment for natural selection -- make something else up. While they are passing and taking, talk about something else, write on the board, etcetera. When the tray comes back to you, count how many blues, reds, greens, browns...etc. were chosen. Save the orange and yellow for last. You can keep tally on the board.
You will find that very few, if any, oranges and yellows are chosen. I've done this many times, and often we have zero. Usually it's one or two.
Voila! Natural selection.
It makes sense to use M&Ms because I remember how in school they taught us about how Rip Van Darwin was sleepin' under that tree for 100 years and then a bag of M&Ms fell out of the tree onto his head and woke him up and he said, "By jove, Dr. Watson! I've discovered the Law of DNA!" That was my favorite day of science class.
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