There are lots of titles out there in American bookstores that see the need to defend the idea of evolution from the claims of creationism and intelligent design. But this book is not one of them. Shubin assumes that you accept evolution to be a fact about the world and gets on with it. He is a fish paleontologist who teaches anatomy to first year medical students at the University of Chicago. If that sounds strange, it won’t so much after you’ve read his book. Paleontology and comparative anato More...

This really was a pleasure – another book recommended by Wendy – although what I liked most about it was possibly not the most obvious things about the book. From very early on I was in a bit of a world of my own and had started to wonder what to make of the fact that palaeontologists tend to make such wonderful science writers?

I’ve said it before, but I think Gould is a better writer than Dawkins – and that is a big statement for me, as I tend to prefer an English voice over an American one. I More...

This book delivered exactly what I wanted: an explanation of evolution from fish (and before really) to man in layman's terms, but not moron layman--well-spoken layman. I had so many 'ah-ha!' moments while reading this book that my head began to spin a little, but in a good way. For instance, when I used to think about evolution the hardest part for me to wrap my mind around was the slow progress of body parts morphing from one form to the next. What this book enlightened me to was that it's not More...

This is a very important book that not only updated my knowledge on the current state of comparative anatomy in relation to evolutionary biology but also kept me turning the pages in absolute fascination. I almost read it in one sitting because I couldn't bear to put it down. No one who reads this could possibly have any doubts about the relatedness of all of life or the fact that we carry the evolutionary history of more than just humans inside us. I found the writing style less than elegant, b More...

I really enjoyed this exploration into our human body and how it reveals pieces of our evolutionary ancestors.

You certainly don't need a science degree or much of a biology background at all to follow the steps from gills to ears or larynx. I would have appreciated more detail and a little less hand waving, but that's my inner scientist showing through.

He had a very detailed bibliography, with not just titles he drew on and others to explore, but commentary on why they might be useful. I love a More...

I threw in the towel with this book about half way through. I found it to be dull, and missing a voice. It feels mostly as if the author is trying to convince his audience that evolution is real. It's written part to the layperson, part to the scientist or student, it's neither a textbook not a successful popular work to me. I love scientific books, and could point folks to a few which I believe were amongst the best that I read in the last year or two, but this book just misses the mark.

I woul More...

Update 12/2009: Shubin and I have just released 40 figures in this book as a deck of PowerPoint slides with the hopes that educators across the country will be able to use them in their lectures on evolution and biology. They're available for free on the Tiktaalik website: http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/book-to... Hope they're useful!

Review from 12/2007: Keep an eye out for this book's release in January of 2008. I worked extensively with the author while he was writing it, and was constantly ent More...

If Richard Dawkins attacks Creationism with rhetorical broadsides, Shubin does it with a carefully-aimed silenced rifle; less dramatic, but far more effective and humane.

Unless I missed something, I don't think Shubin uses the word "evolution" anywhere in the book. But he presumes Common Descent and -- without the reader having to be consciously aware of this -- causes the reader to presume it as well. He or she has to for the book to make any sense. Indeed, until the final chapter, I don't thin More...

Shubin, a paleoichthyologist, tackles major trends in the water-to-land-to-bipedalism transitions with a good sense of humor about the whole ordeal. For the lay anatomy enthusiast, this book does an excellent job of summarizing shared anatomies and evolutionary scenarios while not getting bogged down by terminology. Particularly enjoyable is his manner of incorporating modern medical maladies with an evolutionary perspective on the human body. For the more advanced student, chapters on middle ea More...

This book spoke to my biology background. I was fascinated by the anatomical structures that are similar in humans and other animals. Good information and illustrations without being overly academic.

evolutionary biology is an endlessly fascinating subject, and shubin's exploration is remarkably accessible and engaging. i wonder, however, whether creation scientists (outdoing even the most oxymoronic), when not cursing the incontrovertibility of the fossil record, recoil moreso at the thought of having emerged from the selfsame primordial ooze as all other living things, or at the notion that if they accede to the logic of evolution then the remainder of their reasoning will suddenly appear More...

Your Inner Fish is a wonderful and enthusiastically written book on evolution and the connection between all species of creatures on Earth. What do humans have in common with fish? A lot, actually. Neil Shubin takes the reader on an adventure of paleontology and biology to examine different body parts and where they originated and how they developed. In Neil's own words, [return][return]Looking back through billions of years of change, everything innovative or apparently unique in the history of More...

Archaeology, anatomy, evolution...these are not things where I am well versed to give a thoughtful review, but since I've insulted this work with two stars, I should explain: I was awaiting the chapter that would make me reconsider myself as a fish and send me running to a swimming pool for relief - and did not find it.

Basically, this seems more like an overview of evolution and the title's idea seems like a last thought of many chapters. The diagrams are, at times, more relevatory than the pros More...

The title is a little off-putting, but the book is excellent. Neil Shubin is a paleontologist, but not one of the kind who puts you to sleep with unpronouncable species names and obscure anatomical parts. Here is an author who writes to the general audience, and is very gifted at doing it. The theme is that all of us living today have a linkage with animals of the past, even into the distant past. Not only can we see our primitive skeleton's origin, but DNA evidence connects us too. Embryology a More...

At no time in our history has it been more necessary to show that evolution is true, and that we - human beings - are deeply related to the rest of creation. In this highly accessible book, Neil Shubin shows how every detail of our biology is a product of evolution, how seemingly odd quirks of our body are leftovers of our evolutionary heritage. How, for example, the little bones in our middle-ear evolved from the jawbones of reptiles which evolved from the gill skeletons of fishes, and much mor More...

An excellent introduction to the evidence for the unity of life on planet Earth. The author, Neil Shubin, expertly connects the evidence from the fossil record to that of modern molecular techniques and creates strong support for the relationship of all forms of life through its anatomy, embryology and DNA. This book is required reading in the biology department at our university and as such it risks losing those who read for the love of reading. Nevertheless, Shubin's joy of learning and his en More...

The author explains the human body by interweaving aspects of the fossil record, embryology, physiology, comparative anatomy, and genetics in a manner that is widely understandable. In doing so, he provides the current (2008) scientific understanding of evolution - although this is not explicitly stated. It is a compelling story and if evolution were taught as part of what we know about our own biology, starting in grade school, I doubt that there would be the degree of public controversy over t More...

This was a Christmas gift from someone who has spot-on perfect judgment of my tastes. :) I was actually surprised I'd never heard of this book before, as it is right up my alley. This is the perfect popular science book: written by a first-rate scientist who doesn't pull any punches by leaving out scientific jargon or dumbing things down, and yet it is easily understandable by any layman with an interest in developmental biology. Neil Shubin is an anatomy prof at the University of Chicago and pr More...

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

Your Inner Fish is one of the most interesting books ever written about evolution. It tells us two fantastic stories: the story of our bodies and the story of one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever made. It's a fantastic enlightening book that tells us why we look the way we do. This 240-page book is composed of the following eleven chapters: 1. Finding Your Inner Fish, 2. Getting a Grip, 3. Handy Genes, 4. Teeth Everywhere, 5. Getting Ahead, 6. The Best-L More...

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 More...

There are plenty of people writing reviews about this book detailing examples of what is covered in the book, but if you are on the fence about reading it, here is what the book offers: a basic overview of phylogenetics (specifically cladistics, which tries to use novel features to determine how species are related to each other), the natural history of several important innovations in the evolution of the body plan we share with other land-based vertebrates (birds, fish, mammals), and insight i More...

(I read this on my NOOKcolor ereader. Any Adobe based ereader can access this. There are several editions of physical copies and it is on Kindle)

Wittingly or not, Shubin presents a fascinating narrative of the interlocking web of the biological world from bacteria to worms to fish to birds to mammals. Even Creationists should find this interesting, because the relationship between species can be seen as being part of a wondrous Master Plan. Died in the wool Darwinians can read it as evolution no More...

This book was a revelation to me. For the first time, I understand how many facets of knowledge undergird the theory of evolution. Neil Shubin didn't just find the transitional skeleton he needed to find. He found the age of rock he needed to find, the prehistoric environment he needed to find, and then began looking there for the skeleton. And after a lot of digging, he found it.

The skeptic in me says that it is awfully convenient that he was able to "find" this skeleton. But I'll give him the More...

When I was a kid, I loved to read the non-fiction books of Issac Asimov.

I was fascinated by how things worked, be they natural of something man-made and Asimov wrote to inform the layman like me of the wonders of everything from physics to biology (and even the Bible).

Once I worked as a lowly night janitor in a Bell Telephone office. I couldn't wait for my lunch hour to run to the basement, pull up a chair and dig into what Asimov had to say on the structure of the atom and how electricity worke More...

This work is an excellent synthesis of current research and thinking in a variety of disciplines. Shubin draws from cladistics, geology, paleontology, functional and comparative anatomy, genetics, and embryology to paint a complete picture of why the human body looks the way it does now, and what its relationship is to the body plan of other creatures (both extant and extinct). This is a very accessible book for anyone with a basic undergraduate level of scientific literacy. Nothing was dumbed d More...

Страхотно въведение в генетиката и палеонтологията, разкриващо ни теорията за еволюцията не чрез огромно количество научни факти, а през призмата на всекидневния поглед към света ...показващ ни красотата на философския светоглед в ежедневната нагласа към всичко, което ни заобикаля и към самите нас, които чрез екзистенциалното търсене, което може да бъде съпътствано винаги от чувството ни за хумор се стремим да разбулим загадките, свързани със собственото си съществуване, показващи ни изконната в More...

"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 j More...

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 we got from there, waaaay back there, to here, and one can also find, in comparing embryos of different species, evidence of our developmental history. DNA tells tales. Neil Shubin follows both paths More...

Shubin shows us the connection between all animals' cellular and anatomical structures. Drawing from his expertise in paleontology, he presents a convincing series of examples. The bone configuration in the arm limbs of humans, whales, and reptiles matches that found in the original walking fish of 300 million years ago. The cell grouping and molecules that cause growth of limbs and eyes is similar across species and can be transported between them. Structures in our inner ear match sensory stru More...

Neil Shubin wrote this book with a very clear theme in mind - that we are not all that dissimilar to other organisms, that we can find bits of us that had their origins from, what we perceive as, primitive and simple organisms.

Throughout every chapter, this point was repeated relentlessly, although not exhaustively that the reader would find annoying. Rather, this repetition consolidated his point and I, as a biochemistry undergraduate, was amazed and intrigued by how my human body came into exi More...