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.
