• Title: Your Inner Fish
• Author: Neil Shubin
• Genre/Subject: Human evolution
• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication Date: 2008
• Start date: 9/10/24
• Finish date: 10/24/24

Review:

I’m back! With the onset of fall and modeling season, and then with Halloween coming up reading has been on the back burner. So forgive me the delay but this book was perfect for a long read.

Neil Shubin is the paleontologist and professor of anatomy who was the co-discoverer of Tiktaalik, the so called “fish with hands”. Which he doscovered right here in Canada, waaaay up north on Ellesmere Island. While this discovery forms a part of the narrative there is so much more that makes this book a joy to read.

This is science writing at its finest, meaning that it is easily read and understood by non-scientists like me. The science is presented clearly and yet never gets dry or pedantic (okay not NEVER, but rarely), instead it often turns out to capture the majesty and wonder of our bodies as seen through the lens of billions of years of our evolutionary history.

Neil Shubin is a scientist who has never lost his love for science and his irresistible enthusiasm shines through on every page. When it’s freezing cold in a barren valley in the arctic, and you’re picking away at a rock with a scratch awl it must seem less than irresistible. He makes this very clear, and yet… when you find and free a fossil animal that has been stuck in rock for uncountable ages, well that is something for which there is no comparison.

The book follows the evolution of us, humans, from fish. Sounds complicated? Absolutely, but thanks to science and hard work from scientists we can clearly see exactly how this was accomplished. And it’s not all about fossils, a lot of it concerns the DNA that contains all the instructions to make a fish, a giraffe, and a me and a you. If your argument is GOD DID IT then you’re gonna have to back it up against mountains of evidence.

If you hear a politician or celebrity get asked do you believe in evolution, this is the wrong question. The question should be: do you understand evolution? It’s not a weird esoteric theory like quantum mechanics, it’s just a matter of reading a book like this and understanding it.

A great read by a great science writer, highly recommend and highly enjoyed reading this.