Neil Shubin, Professor of Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, made headlines in April 2006 with his discovery of a 375-million-year-old fossil called Tiktaalik, the missing link between ancient sea creatures and land dwellers. The reviewers, mostly science writers, embraced Shubin's popular science book, which offers a new perspective on evolution, a subject on which most people feel like they've already made up their minds. While many Americans doubt Darwinism, hardly anyone discounts anatomy, so it is a logical place to reopen the debate. All critics agreed that Shubin, with his clear examples and explanations, makes (yet another) convincing argument. A few critics, in fact, were so excited by it that they seemed ready to enroll in Shubin's anatomy course themselves.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.