Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to...
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Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish.Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of anatomy who discovered Tiktaalik—the "missing link" that made headlines around the world in April 2006—tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth. By examining fossils and DNA, Shubin shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our head is organized like that of a long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genome look and function like those of worms and bacteria.Shubin makes us see ourselves and our world in a completely new light. Your Inner Fish is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible, and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780375424472 (0375424474)
ASIN: 0375424474
Publish date: 2008-01-15
Publisher: Pantheon
Pages no: 240
Edition language: English
I wish some of the chapters had been more detailed. There were chapters dedicated to the ears, our heads (mostly cranial nerves), vision, and eyes. Each chapter was interesting, but I thought they were too short. that's really the only thing I have to say about this book. My reviews suck!
I knew about this book from Trevor's review some time ago. I saw it in the Bibliography of some of Dawkins' books and it that of Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne which I recently read, and I got interested to read it very soon. It is truly a remarkable work. If not for anything, just because ...
How are embryos like fossils? How did we come to have the hands, arms, heads, bone structures, ears, eyes and many of the other parts we have? It turns out that homo sap is a very jury-rigged critter, an accumulation of biological compromises and re-purposed parts. One can look at fossils to see how...
It can be pretty repetitive and at times...a bit simplistic. You can tell he's pretty happy with his life from how much he talks about himself/people he knows. ;D But overall I'm glad to have read it, it went quickly and there were some really cool nuggets of information in it.