The Taxonomy of Candy 

Of course, we can also look to the candy manufacturing process for more insights into this phylogeny. For example, fetal M&Ms lack their candy coating, which suggests that they are more closely related to groups such as truffles or chocolate-covered peanuts.

I understand the larger lesson you're trying to teach here, but seriously, as far as the candy is concerned, I want a consensus and a chart. This is important.

I suppose the common ancestor of all this candy would be sugar?

Characteristics of Taxonomists: cute, grandparent-ish, wears glasses

"...Different species of jellybellies." How delightful.

Well, you have Fatty and Low-Fat kingdoms. Chocolate and Reeses Pieces are phyla in the Lipid-Rich kingdom. Under chocolate, you would have things coated in chocolate, and solid chocolate with things in it (bars and so on). Under the chocolate-coated phylum are candy-coated and uncoated classes (m&M species vs truffles). Orders under these would include coated or uncoated chocolates, each with a set of families covering solid, liquid, or peanut butter, or nougaty centers). In the kingdom of Low-Fat or "sugar-based" candies, you have Hard, Chalky, and Soft phyla. Under Soft you may have Taffy vs gummy classes. In this regime, the starburst, both genera in the family of jelly-beans, and most of those other gummy-types would be in an order based on their common ancestor -- Turkish Delight, and their genera would be by flavor.

This was so fun! I also really appreciate the ending point - asking whether order is inherent or observed after we've seen all the ways different professionals may construct their candy taxonomy. Also, until I went college I said "Ree-sees Pee-sees" because that's how my family says it, for some reason. I just never thought about it and finally read the label when I was, like, 20? Was mortified to think how many people I'd said that in front of and who just kindly nodded without saying anything. Probably not many - but juuuust enough.

I'm a little sad it wasn't mentioned how the different classification schemes will be useful to different people as a result of their specific needs. Someone might classify for color, for example, if they had an aversion or reaction to a specific kind of dye. Retailers might benefit from classification by manufacturer, whereas consumers probably wouldn't care. Someone who is planning a hiking trip might classify by weight, caloric density, or melting point. It all depends on what you need the classification to do for you. Still, this is an excellent way to demonstrate the concept.

I may share this with my mom. She works at the local library and does some science programs for kids sometimes, and this would be the perfect activity to teach them taxonomy. Would have to think of something to replace the peanut candies though because allergies.

I just love the juxtaposition of applying advanced taxonomic schemes to something as commonplace as candy! I guess that was the whole point.

Wow!, my very first subtitles for a RU-vid video have just been published. Now "The taxonomy of Candy" has ITALIAN subtitles! Yay! Subtitles in RU-vid: CHECK!

Yeah "lost" them... though Im not a big fan of black licorice.

This is the best way to teach science. Ever. Just don't get the opinion of a dentist and trust me on this one.

In my taxonomy class in university the first task was to organise characters from Disney, you know Donald and Dolly and the others. The trouble is that you "know" that some are ducks and some are mice and some are dogs, but the clothes and features are not consistent within species. And when you go through them you have to decide if their clothes count as characters or not. Very funny and quicky shows how difficult it is do decide what are the important traits, like they discuss with the colours of the candy in this video.

The question I was waiting for you to ask....if you were to dump all jars into a big bowl, do the taxonomists believe that they would classify them back into their original jars, piece by piece?

Lol I think that one guy is just hungry.

Great video! I wonder if you could sequence candy DNA, would that settle this once and for all? PS - Reese's Pieces do not have chocolate in them! PPS - Black licorice are definitely Archaea, as I predicted on Twitter :)

Alright, so, if we think about this.. Candy has a "survival of the fittest" mechanism behind it. It's form and taste serves a function; to please humans enough to conserve the recipe for later use. Black liquorice is evolved to be please a particular set of people (we eat them a lot more in Holland). It has a niche. In Holland, we also have different combinations with black liquorice; particularly with winegums. However, people who don't enjoy black liquorice probably are not receptive to these combinations. So, any candy which incorporates liquorice is a family of it's own. You can do this with the rest of the candy as well until you arrive at the different species of candy. Which we also call "target audience".

He was right about the cinnamon and peanut butter. Here in Canada not long ago the Kraft brand of peanut butter released a cinnamon raisin flavour. I haven't yet tried it myself but I have had peanut butter on cinnamon raisin bread. Yum (and I'm not even a big cinnamon fan)! Side note, when he mentioned separating them by chocolate and non-chocolate, the Reese's Pieces were moved to the chocolate side but they contain no chocolate. Just candy coated peanut butter lol.

Taxonomy was the main reason why I picked chemistry over biology. Watching this video reminds me of why I didn´t pick it, it feels too random for me. ... and then I went into cancer research.

I love the way the experts just jump into the task at hand. At least on camera they don't question the validity of the experiment or get huffy about being silly. They just classify that candy, the best they can with the limited information they have. It was very fun to watch and I think it was a great way to explain it

The ancestor of one group is the peanut. A mutant chocolate gene causes chocolate peanuts and peanut M&Ms to arise. From there the group diverges into peanut butter M&Ms, reece's pieces, and a group which secondarily loses all peanuttiness to become normal M&Ms. I feel like the skittles and two types of jellybeans form a genus of some kind as well, but I'm not sure how the others fit in.

I think this one should have ended with, "It still has jelly-beans on it."

I don't know about Lala Land but it certainly looks like these species all came from Wonkaland (not to be confused with Oompa Loompa Land). It's actually very interesting to see a scientific approach to classification. It may seem silly to do it with candy but in reality, this is what scientists do, especially taxonomists, when having to approach a problem. Look for as many possible variables as possible, assign them values, classify the samples according to their values for each variable, see if there are any correlations, etc. The comment about classifying by color (the red birds) made me think of something. With taxonomy, thanks to evolution, it is possible to use genetic data to understand which features take priority during classification. But with candy, it seems quite reasonable to classify by color, at least superficially. We tend to think it's normal and okay for different types of jelly beans to be different colors (and also flavors though that can vary) but we could also look at it from a different perspective, we could say that there's red candy and green candy, the red candy may be jelly beans or skittles or what have you, but they're all the same color, while the green candy will have different shapes but again same color as each other. Dr Heaney makes a good point regarding classification based on color. And ah, the philosophy of knowledge and understanding of the universe. The universe simply is, and we do our best to try and understand it even though we may be wrong or trying to force classification upon an unclassifiable world. It's still very stimulating to do, and can be helpful too.

this was really awesome, fun, & demonstrative!

Interesting to see professionals in the fields having different approaches at setting up the taxonomies and they all vary from each other! I'm currently in my 3rd year of med school and learning the taxonomy of microorganisms isn't the easiest nor most intuitive job ever...

What a great way to explain the difficulties commonly found in taxonomy. Great content as usual. Keep up !

I was doing some field research into this very subject as I clicked on the link. I'm currently studying the migratory habits of American candy here in the UK. I don't know if it is linked with climate change, but a wider range of candy phyla have been discovered here, with each passing year. I know from examining the structure of the migratory packs, that some species have in fact started breeding here. Several breeding grounds, or manufacturing plants, have been discovered across the UK. I wish one day to visit the US to see how widespread the UK candy, or sweetie, migration is, as I heard reports that the predatory Hershey had driven the weaker UK sweetie into virtual extinction in the USA.

Wow, I've actually been taxonomizing candy for fun lately, so I was surprised to see this video! I'll share my expertise: there's a good reason not to classify candy by color, and it's because although color is an important component of candy, it's not the most important characteristic. What makes a candy what it is is what the candy is made of: whether it's chocolate, caramel, gummy, etc. So putting red M&Ms in the same category as red Skittles doesn't make sense because the function and taste and effect of those two things are completely different. I put everything chocolate-covered in one category, but it's a complex category because a lot of things can be inside the chocolate, and those things can be very similar to a kind of candy that's the same, but not covered in chocolate. Then in another category, I have things that are basically solid chocolate, but might have bits and pieces of other things in them, like chocolate bars with peanuts or puffed rice. This has sub-categories like whether the chocolate is dark, white, or milk, and what other flavors or things are in it. Most other candies tend to be pretty homogeneous, so they're pretty easy to categorize: gummies, marshmallow, hard candy, chalky candy, taffy, gum, toffee, marzipan, peanut butter candy, candy corns and the like, and those fruity chewy things with hard shells like Skittles. Then there are the more obscure/weird things, like candy goo and pixie dust, and combinations of things might be in their own categories or as sub-categories of whatever is the main component of the candy.

This is such cool way of approaching taxonomy :) gotta love me some sweets

Emily and the Brain Scoop team: thank you for continually bringing educational and entertaining content to this channel that is accessible but no less thought-provoking.

These doctors and professionals are probably the most charismatic and most respectable people

I love how serious they all take it, they are clearly all very passionate about their field

This is awesome. Getting a bunch of experts to do something so silly and relatable to the masses while still making clear their thought process when approaching taxonomy.

Yes, "lost" ;) I would have "lost" the M&Ms

This novel way of presenting a core concept is absolutely awesome.

I love this video. It's an incredibly creative and fun way to introduce the subject. Great work.

I've watched shows where people talk indepth about the real histories of candy, and everything, and it's so so interesting to see other people breaking them up how they think they'd be best classified, this was such an awesome video.

That's exactly what I would occupy myself with as a kid. Given a box of assorted sweets, I'd group them, I'd test them, I'd classify them, I'd give them a rarity value. I enjoyed taxonomic divisions/relations in various fields as soon as I understood what they were. My mom loves biology, she encouraged that passion in me )

Such a wonderful concept in illustrating the difficulties of taxonomy. Yes, I will share with my librarian friends and others who have created taxonomies for websites.

It's so cool hearing scientists talk scientifically about something so simple.

They should show this in every elementary/middle school and have the kids classify their own candies after👍🏽

I didn't think I could ever not like a conversation on candy. Now, I need a grant to classify what type of candy will go into my tummy.

"I lost it!" ...or more likely "I ate it!" :D

I'm so happy for the Brainscoop being viewed by a larger audience! Great job, Emily and Brandon. I hope more people continue to watch in the future!

I need to find this magical river full of reeses pieces. js....

Dammit Emily, now I want candy! Unless, of course, it DOES still have brains on it, in which case you can keep it. >.>

"natural history conceived the world as a chaos out of which the scientist drew order. it was not, then, simply a matter of describing the world as it was." -Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes

'guts of chocolate' is my new favourite phrase

More videos with Dr Janet Voight please.

What about looking at the history of each candy company? You definitely have some convergent evolution there.

Scientists at the Field Museum are awesome.

I adore the Costume Designer of this video production team ! Beautiful color scheme ! Good job !

A-MA-ZING!!! this is one of the best tBS episode ever. This game, this example, is PURE GENIUS and is perfect to let people understand more about taxonomy, evolution and biology in general. Kudos!

I was really hoping this video would end with a nice taxonomy chart for what they decided.

I love that the mammalogist was the one who said, all the red together. Because that is exactly how real phylogenies are sometimes. Especially with plants, the consensus is thrown off all the time, but who says that he's necessarily wrong, when before genetics that was what they went on.

This was such a fantastic idea for a video. The general idea of taking someones methodology and applying it to an unusual subject could be a format in itself.

This is brilliant! :D

I like how they totally say you can't classify species by just color alone yet the one professor is totally doing it

This was super cute. I'm subscribing.

I feel like the immediate, obvious place to start is that we know from the historical record that peanut M&Ms split off as a species from regular M&Ms.

This is the most in depth and pivotal moment in science.

THIS IS BRILLIANT!!! For true genius, though, have children involved in sorting the candy. Experts, you know!

Delightful. All such good sports, and managed to still explain the process effectively, despite their mouths often being stuffed with candy.

With organisms an important factor in how to arbitrarily group them seems to be how they came about. So you could, for example, group candys by manufacturer and then say that Smarties and chocolate filled M&Ms are "covergent evolution" happening in two completely different families, resulting in very similar phenotypes. I guess.

Love it! One thought though. Before classifying the jars, isn't it important to know what your goal is when choosing a classification system? Are you trying to find out if they share common visible traits? Size shape and color come into play. Trying to prove they are all came from different source material? Divide them into chocolate, jelly and shelled. All classifications act as a lens to see the world through because the complete picture is too complex to reasonably navigate.

This would be a fantastic experiment for kids. Also, I loved how each of these accomplished scientists had different approaches to the problem.

This is absolutely charming! I love seeing the scientists play with this"problem"

I honestly really adored how interesting and ridiculous this video was (because who would've ever though of classifying candy? Hahaha) because it's amazing how they're all going about their attempts to classify each of the candies and then they explain their reasonings and it's just great.

Thank you so much for this video! I am an upper elementary teacher and will definitely be using this exploration activity with my students and showing them this video after. Thank you for producing high quality content and giving us access to informal educational experiences we wouldn't otherwise have!

I would LOVE to do this activity with kids after a lesson on taxonomy. I feel like the 4-5th grade age-group would be particularly interested and discerning about this (also they could eat the candy afterwards, which is always fun).

And after 3 years, on a video about candy... it still has brains on it.

Emily, I find you such an inspiration! You discovered science in you life and found a place and job for that passion. Your work, and your love of science has convinced me to continue to investigate and pursue science as I complete high school and prepare for college. Your videos and work with both uni. of Montana and the Field Museum inspire me to investigate and study more about the creatures that make up our world.

I love how seriously they all took this.

An absolutely brilliant and fun way to teach what taxonomy is. We should figure out more ways like this to teach children. Great video.

This video would be a great way to demonstrate scientific categorizing to kids! You guys do a great job of supplying great information while also putting it into words most average people can understand. I really think these videos will help out the modern population of people that are interested in sciences but don't have a good educational source to learn from. I really hope this gets people more interested in science. It's always been my favorite class! I really enjoy historical sciences like anthropology and paleontology because seeing how things improved over time is just too cool!

Very clever video, making us have a look at the thoughts of experts, treating a subject many people have knowledge of and can relate to. Well done!

this is a GREAT way to associate everything in every day life with the scientific methods. As juvenile as it can seem, the explanations from the professionals and applying that to something anyone can relate with, made this a great video and very engaging. thanks!!!

"Do you eat the beetles that you study?" "No, not normally...."

Have you read 20000 Leagues Under the Sea? They have a character in that book who so obsessively classifies things, he even does it as he is pulled into a maelstrom to his doom.

I love comparing how the scientists think!

Might as well put those curators into exhibits, because they're interesting and the public could learn a lot from their life, experiences, and contributions to science.

Surely the candy should be classified by it's approach towards fulfilling a particular function. The function in this case is, of course, to be appealing to various groups of humans, as the candy would no longer be made if they did not turn a profit. This is more comparable to the taxonomy of organisms - mammalia, fungi, etc. are not classified by genealogy, but rather by general sets of traits that describe an approach towards fulfilling their particular function, which is to ultimately reproduce (similar to the continuation of production of a certain kind of candy). So classifying candy, then, is like classifying media into categories such as comedy, drama, romance, etc. - we should classify by experiential effect, because that experiential effect is what furthers their production and thus profitability (though I suppose candy, like media, could be produced for artistic-experiential merit and not profitability, but that's a whole different story). While colour, taste, texture, name, etc. all play a part in the experiential effect, it's not sufficient to classify them by that one thing while ignoring the interaction of every other factor in producing the whole - that would be like classifying both flies and birds in the same group because they share aerial mobility. So I feel like one or two of the scientists in this video perhaps took an inappropriate approach towards the field. Although, it is just candy :P Serious discussion aside, that was a great video, very amusing and informative ^_^

I love when my two favorite things come together.

it would be much more fun if you let them debate them about their methods of classification.

This is a fantastic way to help give a basic understanding of taxonomy!

The way I classify candies is this: there is chocolate, and there is "why does this even exist?" Pretty much it.

This was super fascinating!! I loved Larry...he seemed pretty stoked to snack on the "specimens."

A new brainscoop video! It's basically Christmas.

After studying a lot of taxonomy that last comment about us imposing order on the world rings very true. It felt like we were looking for order and structure that was not real or relevant. Especially the hierarchical levels like "order" "family" subfamily."

no one really divided them completely I would divide them into two major groups fruit and chocolate. Then i would divide them into groups with similar fillings/ingredients i.e. chocolate and peanut butter would go close to chocolate and peanuts and starburst jelly beans would be in between starbursts and jelly bellys. Then group them into size and then last color.

Very interesting! If I was in HS and I had a science project I would use this concept. Someone in HS, quick! This is your project!

Wow this would be a really good lesson on taxonomy in a high school bio class. So creative

I would propose that candy should be organized by it's life cycle. The way it's made, what it's made of, who made it(originally), maybe even how it's marketed?

I've been waiting for this since yesterday, and I have to say it was definitely worth the wait.

Woohoo Janet Voight! More octopus genatalia please!

How did I manage to miss this video for 3 years?

great video.way to make this subject accessible.

this was so amazingly creative, and such an interesting take on how all these different scientists looked at the way to classify the candy! This was a lot of fun! :)

What a fun video! I loved seeing all their different perspectives on how to classify candy. That's awesome.