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

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Author: Neil Shubin
Publisher: Allen Lane
Category: Book

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Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

7 reviews
Sales Rank: 5572

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1

ISBN: 0713999357
EAN: 9780713999358
ASIN: 0713999357

Publication Date: January 31, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book sourced directly from the publisher. Delivery in 3-5 days. Customer service 7 days per week

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Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

It tiktaaliks all the right boxes June 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

purchased this book on impulse as it was evident at a glance just how well edited and put together it was. I learned a great deal and my only complaint is that the cover of the UK hardback was not half as nice as the one featuring the outstanding fossil - Tiktaalik.

This is a vertebrate paleontology book with strong underlying genetic, evolutionary and anatomical themes. If anything the book kept me asking more questions and it filled in the gaps of the following series -
Eusthenopteron, Panderichthys, Acanthostega, Ichthyostega with the description of the discovery of Tiktaalik. One more star in the VP pantheon representing a missing link in the ancestry of creatures that culminated in modern vertebrates. In a lighter vein, the book showed me just how close I was to a shark or a ray or even to a sponge. Yes, this book made the genetic linkages between organisms and their developmental heritages so perspicacious.

It was easy to read, reasonably well illustrated and above all quite a simple rendition of a complex subject. In the end, it humbles the reader into acknowledging his/her affinity with the natural world. That we are not creatures apart from it.

I expect the editors helped erase out back slapping gestures on the heros of this story such as Jarvik, Clack and Romer - that would however, perhaps be another story - as would more information on lungfish, the coelocanth ... this is a very fishy sort of book and now more than ever, I need to know my kinship to them.

In the end a simple phylogenetic framework is indicated and how we arrive at branching trees that describe our ancestry. I hope this book stimulates more work into conservation and taxonomic research which is very poorly funded.

5 out of 5 stars

A journey worth taking repeatedly. June 2, 2008
The only complaint I could have about this book is the length, I was hoping that the size was deceiving or that the book would continue to write itself as I read on. Neil Shubin writes with passion and clarity, illuminating two separate fields which merge together to mould modern evolutionary thinking. He elucidates difficult concepts with finesse, providing stimulating reading for a wide audience.

The opening chapters are an excellent introduction to field palaeontology and its predictive capability, turning a subject often associated with dusty fossils and haughty professors into one of fascination and awe. From there he leads us into the relationship of the genome with what we see in these fossils, in our trips to the zoo and in our own bodies. Shubin makes these diverse fields tangible to the layman, weaving them together effortlessly and presenting the intricacies of life for all to marvel in. This book filled many gaps in my knowledge and I feel I will never look at my body the same way, the effect of this book is profound.

5 out of 5 stars

Easy read - adventure and science combined June 2, 2008
This book is easy to understand for every layperson and could be used even for teenager to understand the development of evolution and the effects on the human body.
Neil Shubin describes a nice mix of adventure story during excavation journeys into the Canadian artic, and how to search targeted fossils expected in geological strata of 375 million years finally yielded the Tiktaalik fossils. He shows how the work of geologist is the basis for paleontologist fossil hunters to allow structured search and digging.

The description and explanation of the fossils he found, especially the link of fish to land animals are shown using the evolution of limbs are easy to understand without deep knowledge of paleontology or anatomy.
Also the building plan of the human body as a result of the evolutionary history can be traced all the way back to the body plan of fish as Shubin shows.
So the bad design of the human body can be perfectly explained by evolution, just what you would expect if there is no Intelligent Design used for the human body.
Also another alleged `missing link' of the fossil record from fish to land animals is closed with Tiktaalik.

I hope some day `Your Inner Fish' will be published as paperback in Europe as well, to make it available to a wider audience which it deserves.

5 out of 5 stars

Powerful work April 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book is one of the most powerful demonstrations of how scientific progress in anatomy, medicine, paleontology, and genetics have come together to provide proof of the theory of evolution. I would recommend it to anyone who has the slightest doubt that evolution is as proven as any theory could be. If anyone could read this and still have such doubts then they would have to be in complete denial of science itself. A wonderful book.

5 out of 5 stars

Hands, hyoids and . . . hiccups?? March 28, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

What a pity there is no Nobel for palaeontology. Some sort of award should be given to Neil Shubin for finding "Tiktaalik" in the Canadian Arctic. It wasn't a chance find - he relates the detailed planning steps leading to its discovery. An extra ribbon should grace the medal for explaining that fossil's significance in this book. There have been recent accounts on the evolutionary path of animals emerging from the sea to take up the role of landlubber. Carl Zimmer's "At The Water's Edge" and Jenny Clack's "Gaining Ground" are examples. Both preceded the "Tiktaalik" find, but more to the point here is that while both are excellent writers, Shubin demonstrates communicative skills bordering on the superb. This is truly a book for everybody. Especially if you want to know why you develop hiccups.

A great fuss was made over the "Tiktaalik" discovery. What is its significance? For starters, it was flat-headed ["So what? I know lots of people who are flat . . ."]. While we may consider flat heads in derogatory terms, for life emerging from the sea, it was a vital step. That the head could move independent of the rest of the body was even more significant. Fish cannot do this, and except for bottom dwellers, don't have flat heads. Further, "Tiktaalik's" eye structure gave it forward vision. In a creature 375 million years old, these characteristics are significant. They offer clues to how you and I are put together and why. Shubin offers a meaningful example of this when he showed "Tiktaalik" to his daughter's preschool class and they declared it to be both fish and reptile - which is the key to the value of his work here.

Land dwelling, Shubin reminds us, requires major changes in body plan. Instead of fins propelling the body through the water, limbs capable of supporting that body must develop. Those limbs must have flexible contact points, leading to the formation of fingers from fin bones. Lifting the body reformed the bones' arrangement leading to our wrist and hand structures. Air breathing shifts the location of oxygen-capturing equipment and distribution. Predation techniques change, which might render some bones superfluous. The author's description of how the former jaw bones of fish relocated over time to become the delicate transmitters of sound in our inner ears. Making sound turns out to be derived from other fish. The ancestors of sharks left a string of arches as part of our bodybuilding mechanisms. One of those arches nestles in your throat as the hyoid bone, essential in making speech. Another of those arches evolved into the diaphragm separating our lungs from other internal organs. Hiccuping, Shubin says, "has its roots in fish and tadpoles" because the pattern set in our brain that controls breathing has been "jury-rigged" in the steps to becoming human. In fish, the distance from the brain to the gills is short, but in mammals, the convoluted path those nerves take allows for signal disruptions - hence, hiccups.

Shubin spends much time explaining the development of embryo studies. Watching the progress of a fertilised egg in becoming a finished organism gave researchers insight in how to look for signs of how today's life is assembled. In Freshman Biology, we are still told of "ontology recapitulates phylogeny" - the idea that a human embryo goes through fish, reptile and mammal stages during development. Karl von Baer had already discovered this was incorrect, but it took modern genetic analysis to overturn Ernst Haekel's enduring axiom. Embryos, von Baer observed, form in triple layers, and depending on the signals from the genome, enable one of the layers to begin dominating to produce the appropriate body plan. Shubin uses these studies to further explain the rise in understanding leading to the appropriate HOX genes triggering the chosen layer. As he notes, his work area is braced by two seemingly irrelevant facilities - a fossil preparation facility at one side, and a genetics laboratory at the other. This book brings the two disciplines together with seamless effectiveness. Graced with some photographs, but many fine line drawings to enhance the text, the book is a prize addition to everybody's library. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]