The benefit of a tangle of dependences or lack of separation of concerns is that you need less energy to drive the organism. Analogously, the benefit of having thing look like a nail when all you've got is a hammer is that you only "need" the hammer.
I'm approaching the tautological thought that organisms are by definition perfect for their ecological niche because if they weren't, they would be something else (given enough stability and time in that niche)
It's more accurate to say that theobromine is poisonous to dogs: 100mg to 1kg of body weight.
Which is why my shepherd can filch the occasional candy bar and not die. One candy bar - annoying (to me) but not fatal. A pound of bakers chocolate and she'd be in doggy heaven.
Yet another fun fact: if your dog eats something bad like a hotdog or chocolate, pour some hydrogen peroxide down its throat. It'll make the dog puke up the bad bits. Obviously, do this outside or in an area you can easily clean up.
> I'm approaching the tautological thought that organisms are by definition perfect for their ecological niche because if they weren't, they would be something else
Meditate on what a simple hill-climbing algorithm does when it finds a tiny foothill right below a major peak.
> Random fun trivia: dogs do synthesize vitamin C.
From Wikipedia:
"It is made internally by almost all organisms although notable mammalian group exceptions are most or all of the order chiroptera (bats), guinea pigs, capybaras, and one of the two major primate suborders, the Anthropoidea (Haplorrhini) (tarsiers, monkeys and apes, including human beings)."
That's one reason guinea pigs are used as, well, guinea pigs.
Late response, but yes, the article mentioned local maxima.
But I think it's hubris to think we could do a LOT better.
The human body is a gigantic "engineering" effort involving a vast number of trade-offs and compromises.
I'm approaching the tautological thought that organisms are by definition perfect for their ecological niche because if they weren't, they would be something else (given enough stability and time in that niche)
Random fun trivia: dogs do synthesize vitamin C.