Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Lightweight but worthwhile October 3, 2008
Steve Keen (Herts, UK)
Whilst always very readable, there's something just a little unsatisfying about Neil Shubin's exploration of the evolution of the body up to the one currently occupied by homo sapiens. I think ultimately because it comes over as a little too lightweight, even though the subject is overwhelmingly big.
Nevertheless, there is no denying, ultimately, the level of fascination in the material.
It is, of course, not always comforting to find that, once analysed, human beings are based on the same blueprint as any other animal with a head (and anus, as it happens - Shubin seems to take delight in repeating the word) and some without, where mouth and anus (there it is again!) combine, as in the sea anemone.
Through words and pictures the author demonstrates the similarities between your nearest and dearest and sharks, salamanders, flies and all sorts of other creatures you normally wouldn't be inviting to a family reunion. There's an inevitable quantity of technical vocabulary, but it's never in torrents so it never overwhelms.
So whilst a trifle unsatisfactory as heavyweight Natural History, the book has more than enough going for it to recommend it to the general reader.
Post Script
Some way through the book I will admit to reflecting on first its potential as a treatise on evolution, but then second on the potential it holds for the Intelligent Design lobby - basic blueprint, materials reuse, continuous development.
Shubin doesn't tackle this, which is a shame; I'm reminded of the misuse of Nietzsche under different circumstances and wonder at the naïveté of it all. The ID myth is, of course, nothing more than that, but why give it a potential scientific credence?
A brief check confirms that Shubin is in the evolutionary camp, but that does not dispel some of the ambiguity of Inner Fish, with mentions of the Creator (his capital), no small amount of teleology (suggesting on a number of occasions that species determined for themselves in what direction to develop), and the suggestion that a basic "design" "arose" rather than that a pattern evolved - incredibly there is not much mention of the word "evolution".
In a period during which the forces of reaction are trying their best to roll back the gains of evolutionary science in dispelling superstition, it seems irresponsible to provide them with an open goal.
 And a marvellous fish it is August 22, 2008
Darwin-fan
Neil Shubin has an extraordinary gift for making science that can be difficult to sift through highly interesting. Drawing on his own and other's discoveries many of the more difficult areas of human development are covered with a truly admirable passion. Throughout the book Shubin's passion literally leaps of the page making the book an enjoyable one-sitting read
Shubin's Majestic Trek into the Human Body, Billions of Years in the Making August 8, 2008
John Kwok (New York, NY USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Your Inner Fish" truly merits ample praise for being one of the best-written books on science I've read in years. It also ranks easily as an early, leading candidate as one of the finest books published this year. In clear, concise, and quite vivid, prose, this marvelous terse tome recounts in spectacular fashion, the incredible saga of the evolutionary history of our human body. Vertebrate paleobiologist and anatomy professor Neil Shubin is our enthusiastic, expert guide through this amazing journey into our body's primordial past, weaving with utmost brevity, a most compelling, and intricate, tale from fossils, genes and developmental biology. A fascinating trek through these aspects of evolutionary biology that represents too an intriguing personal scientific odyssey from a novice graduate student to a seasoned scientific veteran of major field expeditions in search of rare, often unique, vertebrate fossils across the globe and of substantial laboratory work in evolutionary developmental biology. In short, in terse, exquisite, well-written, prose, Shubin demonstrates the deep evolutionary connections that unite humanity not only with other mammals, but with other vertebrates too, and indeed, as well, with a veritable tree of life.
Most of Shubin's succinct chapters are devoted to the evolutionary history of both the human body plan and its major organs, such as the eyes and teeth. The opening chapters briefly explain man's kinship with other vertebrates, and recount the unexpected discovery by Shubin and his team of Tiktaalik, the earliest known transitional fossil between fish and tetrapods (land-dwelling vertebrates, including us). These are followed by an extremely short, quite lucid, introduction to the relevance of genetics in evolutionary developmental biology research (Chapter Three), in which Shubin clearly traces the evolution of limbs from fins to bird wings, and finally, human hands. Succeeding chapters include those devoted to the evolutionary history of teeth (Chapter Four), eyes (Chapter Nine) and ears (Chapter Ten). However, the two most intriguing chapters are those devoted to the development of the vertebrate body plan (Chapter Six) - drawing upon both classical embryology and modern molecular biology and genetics, emphasizing the importance of Hox genes - and the evolutionary developmental history of multicellular animals (Chapter 7), culminating in a terse discussion of the Precambrian Ediacaran fauna. Shubin concludes this fascinating little volume with an intriguing discussion (Chapter 11) of human ailments ranging from hiccups to hernias and obesity, demonstrating how these have their origins in our distant evolutionary past, as far back as four hundred million years ago. Without a doubt, "Your Inner Fish" will delight not only students - and others - interested in evolutionary biology, but also those seeking a deeper understanding of both human anatomy and medicine from the perspective of evolutionary biology.
Excellent read, up there with the best of 'em August 4, 2008
Newbonic (Yorkshire, England.)
I've read quite a few books on evolution from the like of Dawkins and Andrew Parker and this is up there with the best of them. Makes me wish I did biology at uni instead of materials science!
A great read both for the story about the fossil collecting expeditions, and general evolution.
It tiktaaliks all the right boxes June 3, 2008
Sarakani (Harrow United Kingdom)
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.
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