Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body | Neil Shubin | Excellent Read

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Your Inner Fish: A...

	Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body Neil Shubin Pantheon, 2008 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 78 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

What I wish I had learned in high school

This book could serve as a great supplement to a high school or even college biology course. Despite the title, it focuses more broadly on comparative anatomy and explains where, how, and why much of our body developed the way it did. While some of the basic points I recalled from my high school biology days, they were never explained to me as clearly as Shubin is able to do. His writing makes years of evolutionary history and complex science accessible and fun to read, especially for someone (like me) who only has a short amount of time to read books for relaxation. He also seamlessly integrates various fields of biological science, from paleontology to DNA analysis, to explain his larger point. I only wish I had read this in high school, when I was still deciding which career path to chose.

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Excellent Read

There are many aspects to the body that make us human. Limbs, eyes, stature, genetics. None of it just happened. And this is evident by looking at all those that have come before us. By clearly showing how evolution is decent with modification, Neil Shubin shows how we can better understand the whys and wherefores of our own bodies by looking at the structure of simpler organisms, namely fish. An excelent example (to me) was the examination of the cranial nerves. I remember them from my anatomy class as seemingly tangled and I couldn't understand why they were so random. But by looking at embryology, fish, and many other aspects of comparative vertebrate anatomy, I now understand how beautifully arranged they really are.

Shubin examines many examples like this, showing how the fossil record show evolutionary history, and how many of these conclusions have been drawn in his field. Included are examples of how body plans form, limbs form, teeth end up in the mouth (my 4 year old loved this chapter and insisted I read the whole thing aloud to him), and how the ear is formed.

The book is engaging, entertaining, and informative. The author strikes an excellent balance between not talking over the audiences head and not dumbing down the information. Recommended for anyone interested in evolution, paleontology, body plans, and examining many of the missing links that have been discovered.

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Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

This is a brief but excellent book explaining how the fossil record is supported via modern science - genetics, DNA sequencing, molecular biology and the like. Although a bit slow in the start, it gives numerous examples of science in the 19th and 20th centuries, scientific progress has both proven and dis-proven scientific theory, and how often full understanding was hampered by lack of tools and technology. This is a must read for anyone interested in evolution, the scientific method (as differentiated from philosophy)and a high-level understanding of the amazing confluence of sciences now available thanks to computing and modern technology. An excellent read!

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On the physical book itself

The physical condition of this book is great. It is a good looking, well sized hardcover with clear and easy-on-the-eyes print, and the pages themselves have a nice feel and look to them, all in all a great book.

As to what is written within you merely need to look at the other reviews.

Highly recommended.

Good information, a bit basic

I am always in search of popular science books that can reach the general public, but still contain information of interest/use to professionals in the field. I find that Shubin's book was great at the former but not so good at the latter. For a more challenging text on this topic, try "Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science Of Evo Devo And The Making Of The Animal Kingdom " by Sean Carroll.

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