Tails of Evolution: Unnatural Selections, a story collection by Stan Rice, story six. A Taste of Honey

 

Stan Rice has published a collection of short stories, Tails of Evolution. Rice is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Evolution, Life of Earth, and popular articles about evolution. Here is Rice’s summary from Kindle:

            What you don’t know about evolution can kill you.

In these stories, Stan Rice introduces us to people who would never have imagined that evolution had any impact on their lives. A young fundamentalist Christian woman, out of place at a university, discovers that love can evolve. A creationist discovers half-fish half-amphibians in a swamp in Oklahoma. Two young Englishmen find themselves actors on the stage of Darwinian sexual selection. A fundamentalist bases his faith on hearing a devil bird. A young preacher finds a hidden city that is based on Darwinism. A food scientist discovers a tribe of Homo ergaster pre-humans in the cliffs of Madagascar. Darwin meets Lincoln, who was born on the same day in 1809. And a young man discovers that love is the most combustible thing in the universe.

The taste of an unusual honey from Madagascar jolted Isaac, a food chemist, into making a trip to track down the source of the mysterious flavor. He discovers a secret forest up in the tsingy limestone blade mountains that is left over from a couple of million years in the past. He also finds a tribe of Homo ergaster (also called erectus), a species of human ancestors left over from the past.

This being fiction, it is inevitable that Isaac falls in love with one of the ergaster women and couples with her. (Can they have children? This fascinating evolutionary question will remain forever without an answer.) But, this being fiction, Isaac has to return to his Homo sapiens world, from which he feels forever alienated.

Could a secret population of pre-humans survive somewhere in the world?

At Last, Getting Back At Evolution

Evolution has given apes, including humans, many astonishing advantages. But it has also taken some things away. Unlike monkeys, apes do not have tails. Evolution has taken our tails away from us.

For most mammal species, a long tail is very helpful in maintaining equilibrium, by counterbalancing the displacement of weight during motion, whether swinging from branches or walking. We humans have learned to walk just fine without tails, but there are some people who have equilibrium problems and cannot easily walk straight. I am one of those people.

Never fear, technology comes to the rescue. Japanese researchers have designed a prosthetic tail, about a meter long, with artificial vertebrae. I understand you strap it on with a belt. It can counterbalance movement in any direction and keep the person who wears it from falling over, or so it is claimed. I understand the tail is covered with a furry skin so it looks more natural.

I wonder what ever made researchers think that people would ever want to wear an artificial tail. Maybe they should sell it with a matching collar, so that if I get one, my wife can hold me on a leash. But most of us would prefer looking like we have equilibrium problems, while we use canes, than to wear tails. Stephen Vincent Benét wrote short story in which a humanoid cat conducted an orchestra by twitching his tail; others have written similar stories.

Every evolutionary change has costs and benefits. And if we try to make an artificial adjustment to what evolution has given us, it is difficult and expensive. And embarrassing too.

An Evolutionist’s Déjà-Vu

 

I enjoy walking (almost every day) in the forests and fields near Hoenheim (Hœnheim), France, which is near Strasbourg. These forests and fields are in the Rhine River plain, not in the mountains. These areas have been disturbed by human civilization for thousands of years.

But as I walk through them, I have a feeling that I have already been here. That is because the forests of Alsace have many of the same herbaceous species as North America—that is to say, weeds. Hundreds of years of commerce and industry have led to a nearly uniform set of weedy plants in the two places. You probably already knew that, but I will give you some specific examples—as a matter of fact, sixty-one of them.

The trees are usually the same genera (oaks, poplars, willows, etc.) but not the same species. For example, cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) are along nearly all rivers in eastern North America, while in Europe it is Populus nigra, the black poplar. America and France both have willows along the rivers, but not the same species—for example, the gray willow (Salix cinerea) is found here but not in America. Some of the “weedy” trees are the same (such as tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima, and the empress tree, Paulownia tomentosa) but this is unusual.

The most common pattern is for weedy species to originate in the Old World and then invade America. But there are some notable exceptions. The ragweeds (Ambrosia) and amaranth (Amaranthus) evolved in America before invading Europe. The best tree example is the black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) which the French call robinier. Unlike most weedy species, this one evolved in America and then invaded Europe, escaping from the garden of the American collection of the French botanist Jean Robin.

Another plant that is really abundant in our forests, especially beside the Ill River, is Parthenocissus quinquefolia, or Virginia creeper. As the name might suggest, it is native to the eastern deciduous forests of North America. But it is, in some places in France, the dominant understory plant.

But there is one understory vine I have never seen in France, nor heard that it has gone wild in France: Toxicodendron radicans, the poison ivy. One website said that the “sumac vénéneux” has been found in a couple of places in France. But it stands nearly alone as an American weed that has not spread in Europe. We can walk with confidence through the undergrowth, being cautious of the abundant nettles (our own species) but not fearing poison ivy.

Occasionally, some abundant herbaceous species in France (such as the nettles just mentioned) are different from their relatives in America; for example, the clematis known as old-man’s-beard, or clématite des haies, is different from the wild species of clematis I saw in Oklahoma. But my list includes 59 species of weeds (plus two trees) found in both France and America. I made a list and scanned it so I could include it in this blog essay if you would like to look at it.

No wonder I felt right at home when I started walking in the woods after moving to France.

Tails of Evolution: Unnatural Selections, a story collection by Stan Rice, story five. At the Captain’s Table

Stan Rice has published a collection of short stories, Tails of Evolution. Rice is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Evolution, Life of Earth, and popular articles about evolution. Here is Rice’s summary from Kindle:

            What you don’t know about evolution can kill you.

In these stories, Stan Rice introduces us to people who would never have imagined that evolution had any impact on their lives. A young fundamentalist Christian woman, out of place at a university, discovers that love can evolve. A creationist discovers half-fish half-amphibians in a swamp in Oklahoma. Two young Englishmen find themselves actors on the stage of Darwinian sexual selection. A fundamentalist bases his faith on hearing a devil bird. A young preacher finds a hidden city that is based on Darwinism. A food scientist discovers a tribe of Homo ergaster pre-humans in the cliffs of Madagascar. Darwin meets Lincoln, who was born on the same day in 1809. And a young man discovers that love is the most combustible thing in the universe.

 

A young fundamentalist preacher is trapped in a snowstorm at a restaurant and hotel in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The people that run it, and the church that meets at the restaurant, are almost too perfect to be true, especially the beautiful wife of the owner. The only problem is that the church is based not on the Bible but on the writings of Charles Darwin.

The people are all beautiful and all alike: all white and blond. They recognize that they need some genetic diversity, which they intend to get from the preacher, who is black. Their attempt to seduce him into inseminating the woman fails. He changes his mind and wants to have sex after all, but all the people and facilities have disappeared, except the building.

Evolutionary scientists like Rice understand that genetic diversity is necessary for not only evolution but for the persistence of a population.

The preacher decides to come back later, when the roads are open again, with a pile of Bibles. I am not going to tell you what he found.

Tails of Evolution: Unnatural Selections, a story collection by Stan Rice, story four. Turn Ye to Me

Stan Rice has published a collection of short stories, Tails of Evolution. Rice is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Evolution, Life of Earth, and popular articles about evolution. Here is Rice’s summary from Kindle:

             What you don’t know about evolution can kill you.

In these stories, Stan Rice introduces us to people who would never have imagined that evolution had any impact on their lives. A young fundamentalist Christian woman, out of place at a university, discovers that love can evolve. A creationist discovers half-fish half-amphibians in a swamp in Oklahoma. Two young Englishmen find themselves actors on the stage of Darwinian sexual selection. A fundamentalist bases his faith on hearing a devil bird. A young preacher finds a hidden city that is based on Darwinism. A food scientist discovers a tribe of Homo ergaster pre-humans in the cliffs of Madagascar. Darwin meets Lincoln, who was born on the same day in 1809. And a young man discovers that love is the most combustible thing in the universe.

Roderick is a fundamentalist American exchange student in Scotland. He has many reasons for his faith, but the main one is that he believes Satan is real and can appear to us at any moment.

Roderick also disapproves of his own sexual attraction to Pamela. They go camping on a beach. He is certain that he can keep his hands off of Pamela. And he does, but not because of his will power. It is because, just as they started to sleep, they hear a loud satanic noise, which chase them back to their respective homes. For years afterward, Roderick tells people he almost lost his faith, until he heard the very voice of Satan on a beach in Scotland.

It was only many years later, when Pamela visits the home where Roderick and his wife raised little fundamentalist kids, that Roderick discovers, on educational television, the territorial call of the Manx shearwater, also called the devil-bird.

As science educators like Rice know, our beliefs are sometimes based on illusions.

Tails of Evolution: Unnatural Selections, a story collection by Stan Rice, story three. Lord Bob and Sir Dick

Stan Rice has published a collection of short stories, Tails of Evolution. Rice is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Evolution, Life of Earth, and popular articles about evolution. Here is Rice’s summary from Kindle:

            What you don’t know about evolution can kill you.

In these stories, Stan Rice introduces us to people who would never have imagined that evolution had any impact on their lives. A young fundamentalist Christian woman, out of place at a university, discovers that love can evolve. A creationist discovers half-fish half-amphibians in a swamp in Oklahoma. Two young Englishmen find themselves actors on the stage of Darwinian sexual selection. A fundamentalist bases his faith on hearing a devil bird. A young preacher finds a hidden city that is based on Darwinism. A food scientist discovers a tribe of Homo ergaster pre-humans in the cliffs of Madagascar. Darwin meets Lincoln, who was born on the same day in 1809. And a young man discovers that love is the most combustible thing in the universe.

 

Bob and Dick are two British students who are wildly enthusiastic about science, especially natural history. Bob puts down Dick for his failure to understand nature—especially evolution—as well as Bob does. They form a secret club—which meets in an old shed at Charles Darwin’s childhood home in Shrewsbury—in which they become Lord Bob and Sir Dick (based, the author says, on Lord Bob May and Sir Richard Dawkins, both leaders in evolutionary science). They find a bottle of flammable chemical in the shed.

Into this intellectual competition comes mate competition in the form of Betsy, a red-haired Irish girl who becomes Lady Elizabeth in the club. That is, as an evolutionary scientist like Rice would explain, natural selection and sexual selection are both at work. Bob is prevailing to gain Betsy’s interest, especially after he discovers them making love in the shed. As Dick, crazed by lust, considers what he might do, he quietly removes the stopper from the chemical bottle. A fire, caused by a Nazi bomb, makes the decision for him.

Tails of Evolution: Unnatural Selections, a story collection by Stan Rice, story two. Fish Fry

Stan Rice has published a collection of short stories, Tails of Evolution. Rice is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Evolution, Life of Earth, and popular articles about evolution. Here is Rice’s summary from Kindle:

            What you don’t know about evolution can kill you.

In these stories, Stan Rice introduces us to people who would never have imagined that evolution had any impact on their lives. A young fundamentalist Christian woman, out of place at a university, discovers that love can evolve. A creationist discovers half-fish half-amphibians in a swamp in Oklahoma. Two young Englishmen find themselves actors on the stage of Darwinian sexual selection. A fundamentalist bases his faith on hearing a devil bird. A young preacher finds a hidden city that is based on Darwinism. A food scientist discovers a tribe of Homo ergaster pre-humans in the cliffs of Madagascar. Darwin meets Lincoln, who was born on the same day in 1809. And a young man discovers that love is the most combustible thing in the universe.

Dr. Fishbein is a creationist who runs a Creationist Evidences museum, to which homeschool fundamentalist moms bring their piles of children. The museum is not well-funded, but a rich Christian investor has come to visit his museum. Fishbein proposes a whole new, and lavish, museum which the investor funds. Fishbein has a particular problem with the evolutionary assertion that amphibians evolved from fishes, and that fossils intermediate between the two have been discovered.

The new museum site is a swamp that turns out to be a remnant from what most scientists (but not those who believe in the Flood of Noah) consider to be hundreds of millions of years old. While planning a big fish fry to dedicate the new building, he discovers something that lives in the swamp that discombobulates his whole belief system. What is it? Nobody ever finds out, because the people who come to the “fish” fry eat the evidence.