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

Neil Shubin

Jan 2008 · Sold by Vintage

About this eBook

The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks).

By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

Ratings and reviews

Among many reasons that make evolution of life such a fascinating subject to study, the fact that we can learn more about how we humans have become what we are today must rank close to the top. This is the basic premise behind Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish." Shubin's day job is field paleontologist, but the idea for this book came about when he taught some laboratory exercises in human anatomy. It turns out that his training in recognizing and categorizing bones of long-extinct creatures is an excellent preparation for understanding of how the human body works. The book is a fascinating and insightful journey into the 3.5 billion years of evolution. It combines scientific facts and information with personal stories and anecdotes. The scientific information is fresh and relevant, and it is not just a regurgitation of the material that can be found in a myriad other books on evolution. These facts really help you with gaining insight into how exactly all life on Earth is related. The last major chapter is probably the most interesting. It is an examination of the way that many of our chronic diseases and illnesses can be traced to the very restricted design options that evolution had. There really is a price that we pay for getting to where we are in the evolutionary development.

Learned lots and lots of stuff from this book. It answers some of the questions that you always ask but never bother to look up because you think the answer either doesn't exist or is way to complicated. An example would be how do cells stick together or how do cells in the pinky know to form a pinky and cells in the thumb know to form a thumb. It also gives some really really cool insights into how we literally are pretty much just modified fish. For example, it shows how a fish jaw bone became part of the human ear. At some points the language can become confusing, so you may need to reread parts of it, but overall, I loved this book!

Incorporating as much of Dr. Shubin's sense of humor as I experienced in the television documentary series, this book is as entertaining as it is informative. It touches on so much deeper a level than the documentary though. As I read it I come across passages that form a mental picture in my mind of the same scene being discussed on TV while delving into more precise details. And I love the jokes in it! Best money I've spent on an ebook.

About the author

Neil Shubin is the author of the best-selling Your Inner Fish, which was chosen by the National Academy of Sciences as the best book of the year in 2009. Trained at Columbia, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley, Shubin is associate dean of biological sciences at the University of Chicago. In 2011 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.