There are two adaptation processes that I have used in my writing. Both seem to be hard for people to understand.
One is what I call Darwinian, though it is not strictly Darwinian. I have referred to the obesity epidemic as the result of a Darwinian process occurring on grocery store shelves. Food producers are adapting their food to become nearly addictive to shoppers tastes.(As my son points out) peanut butter has become increasingly appealing with more salt over decades simultaneously covered with sugar. Two nearly addictive taste attributes. In the case of other foods a wide range of adaptation is being used to make the product insatiably appealing, ranging from added sugar and salt to vanilla and fruit flavors.
This is not truly Darwinian because Darwinian adaptation is survival of the fittingest applied to a random variation. This grocery store shelf adaptation is simply the observation by food sales organizations that a particular variation is increasing its sales volume and indicating a direction to modify future new products.
One of my most important contributions has been to understand how our voluntary society has created and evolved its organizations. I call this process social sorting.
In social sorting there are three steps to joining an organization or institution. Regardless of whether that institution is the PTA, a political party or a neighborhood. First is the flag. The element about the organization that we understand and attracts us in the first place. Then there is the screen that determines whether we can become a member or not. Sometimes the screen is trivial as in which airline we choose, sometimes it is rigorous such as becoming a member of a legislative body. Lastly there is the overflow. The point at which experience and membership convince the member that he or she does not fit and it is time to leave.
That process of adaptation is what determines the nature of all of our institutions and organizations.
Because the concept of adaptation is hard to grasp, my observations are generally ignored in this area.
I contend, that is true for both my idea of food product adaptation as well as adapation needed to join voluntary institutions.