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The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us

Alice Roberts

4.14 · Rating details · 687 ratings · 83 reviews

Alice Roberts takes you on the most incredible journey, revealing your path from a single cell to a complex embryo to a living, breathing, thinking person. It's a story that connects us with our distant ancestors and an extraordinary, unlikely chain of events that shaped human development and left a mark on all of us. Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the e ...more

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Paperback, 392 pages

Published July 14th 2015 by Heron Books (first published September 2014)

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Mar 14, 2016 Bradley rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-shelf, science

Thanks goes to Netgalley!

This book tries to do a couple of things, and while I have no direct issue with any of its aims in any one particular, I kept asking myself a very important question, and asked it often, namely: "Who is this author writing to?"

At the opening, I got the impression that this was going to be a grateful pat-on-the-back for all evolutionists and those who believe in science and reason, and indeed, this is what happens, but instead of a few long focuses on a few of the pieces Thanks goes to Netgalley!

This book tries to do a couple of things, and while I have no direct issue with any of its aims in any one particular, I kept asking myself a very important question, and asked it often, namely: "Who is this author writing to?"

At the opening, I got the impression that this was going to be a grateful pat-on-the-back for all evolutionists and those who believe in science and reason, and indeed, this is what happens, but instead of a few long focuses on a few of the pieces that make humans beautiful and just like the animals we come from, it gets bogged down "hip bone connected to the thigh bone" syndrome.

Instead of a readable series of anecdotes (whether personal, which there are quite a few, or a history of science, which there are also quite a few,) we're also subject to what reads like a first or second year college biology textbook, or perhaps even worse, because it's meant to name drop and exact upon us the price of knowledge without having the depth or experience of being an anatomist, general biologist, or just being extremely well read.

I'm no expert, but I followed most of this book pretty well and understood where the author was headed nicely and enjoyed a number of new info-pieces that I had never come across before. As a reader of lots of fiction and non-fiction, I know there's a fine line to be drawn between too much info-dump or too little, especially in popular non-fiction, but then there's the importance of my repeated question. "Who is this writer writing to?"

If you're reading this book, you're probably already a convert to the alter of science. Aye. My opinion isn't going to change after being shown hundreds and hundreds of examples how and why we're similar to so many kinds of animals. I understood that a long time ago. If she ISN'T writing a book to convert us, then this gigantic overview of the grandeur of the human body might have been better served as a slightly MORE detailed book (or series of books) with a lot more time spent teaching with a lot more depth. Unfortunately, even that's out of the scope for a book of this length, so I'm back to my initial question.

It dawned on me, late in the read, that the book might be best served as something to put on your coffee table. Anyone who's attempted to read it will know just how either *scary* trying to get through it is and will be doubly impressed that *you* got through it, or your scientist friend will see it on the table and proceed to write down all the other books that you should have started with.

If you just want to impress your educated friends and don't want to actually read this book, just display it, then it's probably a fine choice. If they pick it up and thumb through it, they'll pick up on the author's enthusiasm, may recognize her from her science shows (which I have never watched,) and they'll open their mouths in wide "O"s when the big words start tumbling across the page.

I know, I know, I sound like some uneducated yokel when I say this, but I seriously wanted to DNF this book many times. It was either extremely remedial in long passages or I was completely out of my depth in others.

I loved the portions on the brain and our sex organs, thought the one on the eye was rather cool, too, but for everything else, I either had a hard time keeping my eyes focused or I started questioning some fundamental aspect about the book, such as: Where are the symbiotes and all the biota that make up the human body in concert with our standard, not much different DNA from the Fruit Fly? Where is the expression of our DNA explored and how did we become what we are from all these many different starting points that follow from the fish and the primates and so many others? I'd have LOVED to see a lot more pondering along those lines, getting my blood pumping from some cutting-edge theories as well as the history of what we USED to think.

I'm no expert. I never claimed to be.

But... I also don't think I was the right reader for this book. It was either way too many details and being bogged down in the author's big brain or it was way too few, without the precise and logical steps to prove a thesis.

I wanted to like it a lot more, but I don't think it was a complete waste of time. I did get some enjoyment out of it. Maybe it ought to be read in a piecemeal way, grabbing the pieces of the anatomy that interests you the most. ...more

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Nov 30, 2018 Jan-Maat added it

Shelves: 21st-century, science, non-fiction

"There's a deep history hidden in your anatomy" (p.339)

A nice easy going book that drags the reader on a double journey through the human body, firstly from conception on wards, secondly a more traditional tour round the limbs and functionality of the human body. Enroute Alice Roberts discusses human evolution, how the body came to be the way it is and some of the pitfalls and hazards associated with our current specifications.

The style is chatty and easy going, more detailed than I remember fro ...more

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Jun 30, 2016 Caroline rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish, ho-hum, so-much-potential, get-smart, lost-interest, science, nonfiction, she-wrote-it

***NO SPOILERS***

(Full disclosure: book abandoned at page 106 [out of 354 pages].)

I'm discontinuing this in favor of Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, to be read at a later date. Roberts focused a great deal on the nitty-gritty details of biology, with--in one of the sections I read--a great deal of attention given to jawless fish, such as the lamprey. Some parts are fascinating, and science nerds will revel in all of it, but the lay reader will tire ...more

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Jan 01, 2017 Ana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, page-turner, non-fiction

A great book about the human anatomy, complimented with evolutionary explanations for the quirks or mistakes of the complex machines we are. Loved the writing, endlessly fascinated with the subject.

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Dec 14, 2015 Bob rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Summary: An evolutionary account of human embryological development from even before conception through birth and of human anatomy and its evolutionary antecedents.

This review should probably come with a “trigger warning”. The book I am reviewing here may offend some of the Christians I count friends whose beliefs about human origins exclude any form of evolutionary explanations. Alice Roberts unashamedly advocates a thoroughly evolutionary explanation for human origins, embryology, and anatomy. ...more

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Feb 21, 2019 Jamie rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-evolution, science

I would probably never have heard about this book had it not been for a Goodreads recommendation I came across, but I’m glad I got a chance to read it. The writing style is clear, the many drawings are helpful and informative, and even people who are decades away from their last biology class will be able to follow along.

Evolutionary biology is a fascinating topic, as body forms shift over time and species come and go in response to environmental conditions and opportunities. Sometimes anatomica I would probably never have heard about this book had it not been for a Goodreads recommendation I came across, but I’m glad I got a chance to read it. The writing style is clear, the many drawings are helpful and informative, and even people who are decades away from their last biology class will be able to follow along.

Evolutionary biology is a fascinating topic, as body forms shift over time and species come and go in response to environmental conditions and opportunities. Sometimes anatomical features move around and change function. For example, reptiles have several bones in their jaws that are not present in mammals, but only one in their ears, the stapes. Over time one bone from the upper, and one from the lower jaw migrated into the ear to form the mammalian malleus and incus, which connect with the stapes, and in combination the three work together to transmit sounds more efficiently to the brain.

The book is structured so that it links a specific phase of embryonic development with evolutionary adaptations that are present at that time. It starts with the head and spine, moves down through the organs, and ends with the feet and hands. In most of the sections there is a discussion of fossils which illustrate how features emerged, changed, and adapted, including the last common ancestor with homo sapiens that had that trait. For instance, a discussion of how the human embryo starts to develop (it won’t be called a fetus until week eight) describes how certain cells roll up into a cylinder called the notochord, from which the brain and spinal cord will develop, and then takes the reader back to a half billion year old fossil called Haikouella, the earliest known progenitor of notochords, and one of the early species which would ultimately give rise to vast multitudes of vertebrate descendants.

The author talks about some of the history of anatomical research, and the scientists who expanded our knowledge of the form, function, and antecedents of current features. Ernst Haeckel's famous phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" did not turn out to be correct, but it wasn’t a bad guess based on what was known at the time.

The subject of humanity’s more recent ancestors comes up frequently, and is always interesting. It is amazing how much can be deduced from a piece of vertebra or a fragment of rib or ankle bone. The subject of bi-pedalism is mentioned several times. For all the nature documentaries I have watched, it never occurred to me to make the connection that monkeys move through the trees on all fours, using their hands as a second pair of feet, but apes walk upright and use their arms to steady themselves by grasping branches. If our distant ancestors moved through the trees in an ape-like fashion, as seems probable, then walking upright on the ground is not the great mystery it is sometimes made out to be. This idea gives rise to another interesting observation. We have all seen depictions of the march of evolutionary progress where mankind stands triumphantly upright after leaving his knuckle-walking progenitors behind, but in fact the last common ancestor of humans and apes, who lived between five and seven million years ago, may have been an upright walker even then, which means knuckle-walking is the later evolutionary adaptation, while habitually upright walking is the older, non-evolved method of getting around.

This book is full of interesting bits of information, about anatomy ancient and modern, about fetal development, evolution, and how the environment can influence modifications to muscles, the skeleton, and perhaps even brain function. I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it for anyone with an interest in evolution. ...more

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Oct 07, 2015 Margaret Sankey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

From a British anatomist, this is excellent popular science writing, exploring the precarious collection of parts that is the human body and what, with very minor changes in normal development, can go wrong with it. Roberts climbs into MRI machines, uses 3-D printed versions of her own parts and offers lively examples from many years of teaching to illustrate how astounding it is we function at all (and the attractive life of the sea squirt).

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Feb 16, 2016 Brenda fonseca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I bought this book for my grandson, based on a review in the WSJ. I read it in a few days, and loved every minute of it. It explains, in layman's terms, the development of us, not only from the minute of conception (or just preceding it), but from the first life on the planet. How every living embryo resembles a human embryo. It is illustrated, so you can follow her explanations with an image. And it is fun to read. I am sure my grandson will love it. ...more

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Dec 30, 2019 James rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, natural-world, human-biology

Alice Roberts is the Professor of Public Communication of Science at Birmingham University and boy, does it show. This book is jaunty enthusiasm from start to finish. She has a very amiable and pleasant style. Ideal for TV, I thought to myself after a few pages and lo and behold it turns out she is a well-known science populariser on the BBC. A sort of British Degrasse-Tyson - biology version.

That's not to diminish her, She knows her stuff.

We are treated to an in-depth examination of the human Alice Roberts is the Professor of Public Communication of Science at Birmingham University and boy, does it show. This book is jaunty enthusiasm from start to finish. She has a very amiable and pleasant style. Ideal for TV, I thought to myself after a few pages and lo and behold it turns out she is a well-known science populariser on the BBC. A sort of British Degrasse-Tyson - biology version.

That's not to diminish her, She knows her stuff.

We are treated to an in-depth examination of the human body and how evolution helped shape it. Basically it unfolded in a piecemeal, haphazard and not necessarily the most efficient manner. I call the vagus nerve to the stand. We're basically a perpetual patch job.
Each body part is examined in much more detail than I remember from my biology class in secondary school. Very detailed and thorough if not overly exciting. Some parts of the body are just more interesting than others, the ear for example. I feel that these sections would work well in a TV format but are not very compelling on the page.
Where she’s strong is the development of the embryo. The similarities between the embryos of vastly different species are nothing short of amazing.
She moves from embryo species comparison to our particular human journey. How so many of us make it from conception to birth is nothing short of miraculous considering just how precarious the first 9 months are.
Many interesting odd tidbits are encountered in this book. E.g Neural pruning, lamprey habits, the well known but misunderstood clitoris. I would have preferred more tangents and less studiousness to be perfectly honest
She's not combative in her presentations but she still manages to put the creationist and their intelligent designer firmly in their place. That is a soft target to be fair. She avoided the political hot potato of abortion which I thought a bit odd.
I won't pretend to have understood everything but it kept my interest for the most part. That said I was a little disappointed to see her reference Gould and to a lesser extent Dawkins. Their work, especially Gould, is heavily skewed politically and weak as a result.
All that said I’ll definitely read her again. Tamed: 10 species is a work of hers I plan to tackle in the new year. She herself also recommends Your Inner fish by Shulbon which has been recommended by Goodreads. I'll give that a shot too.
...more

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Aug 24, 2020 Islomjon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

I can consider this book as an average popular science book about human evolution and human embryo development for a wide range of people. Narration is quite ubiquitous: the book begins with conception and further divided by chapters where particular part of the body develops such as brain, skull, etc. Although book is mainly about human, there are also correlations with other animals, frequent mentions of apes and primates, less – about mammals, in places very interesting and full of informativ ...more

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Dec 27, 2020 Jan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The author makes great use of her knowledge of anatomy in covering some fascinating aspects of our being alive in the shape that we are, with examination of evolutionary after-effects, embryology and comparison to other apes and hominin forerunners. Very interesting through and through.

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Feb 26, 2018 Elentarri rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-biological

This book covers the fascinating story of how a human body develops, from gametes to fully formed baby. Each chapter covers a specific segment of the body, explaining how it forms (in terms of genes and structure) and gives an evolutionary background for why it developed like that and not some other way, and also sometimes how that particular body part works (especially in terms of feet and hands). Roberts has a lovely writing style and clearly explains what happens when; with minimal intrusions ...more

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Jun 26, 2015 Anna Belsham rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Evolution, biology, and anthropology in one very interesting book.

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Jun 12, 2017 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Probably 4.5. I do wish Goodreads allowed half stars! Full review coming later.

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Jun 25, 2018 Jenny rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Started out well but got more detailed than my interest could sustain so I skimmed.

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Jan 19, 2020 Sayra rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Very poor book. Badly written and chaotic, doesn't signpost well (mentions things sixty pages after they're first mentioned and expects the reader to remember without a prompt) and repeats words a lot within a couple of lines, for example "natural selection doesn't seem to be quite as 'in charge' of the direction of evolution as we might have imagined. It has a limited selection to select from" (pg345) and "Natural selection can only select among possible varients, and variation is already limit ...more

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Dec 24, 2020 Ram Vasudeva rated it it was amazing

A highlight of my love of reading was picking up this particular book, which I only encountered by chance- so I am very grateful for that luck factor...
Prof. Alice Roberts is a world renowned scientist whose embryology tutorials are a massive hit on YouTube- but this book is no less. Embryology will either put you to sleep (oops sorry!) or keep enthralled- this book did the latter. Each and every chapter is woven into its evolutionary basis with plenty of focus on Human side of things. It also i ...more

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Aug 24, 2017 Brian rated it liked it · review of another edition

A really interesting mixture of anatomy, embryology and discussions of evolution. The author explains it all reasonably well and the in-text illustrations really added to the explanations.

The main point the author gets across is that humans are not in a category of their own separate from the rest of the animals and apes. We are not some special being with a purpose and destiny to fulfill. We are just animals with big brains. The author was probably pushing against an open door with this point ...more

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Dec 23, 2017 Nico Van Straalen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Alice Roberts writes with pace and style about the evolutionary background of the human body, mixing personal stories with scientific investigation not unlike a forensic pathologist. The content might be a bit too technical at intervals (even to me the arytenoid cartilages sitting on the larynx cricoid were new), but to the reader able to digest (or skip) such details, the reward is profound: you emerge with a deeper understanding of yourself (says Richard Dawkins). This is the book I should hav ...more

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Apr 12, 2018 Andrew rated it liked it

I learned quite a lot about where humans lie on the Tree of Life. Dr. Roberts is very anti-creationist (and rightly so) but she uses terms like 'tinkering' and 'invention' in relation to evolution and these don't seem to be words to be used if everything is 'natural' with no outside interference.

I had hoped to read about how some parts of our anatomy like blood, proteins, muscle, etc have come about through evolution or how images and sounds came to be converted into electrical signals in the b ...more

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Oct 12, 2018 Chris Thorley rated it it was amazing

this was a very interesting read and I learnt a lot I didn't know about human anatomy/development and human evolution. There were a lot of technical terms (names of different muscles and other things I have a hard time remembering) which almost made me keep it at a four star. Ultimately though the feeling of wonder at how lucky we all our to be here and the amazing process that has lead to that (both in evolutionary terms and in the womb) meant that I couldn't really give it anything other than ...more

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Mar 18, 2020 Herrholz Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, evolution

Very enjoyable, educational book. Highlights for me are the idea that we and many other species might not have begun to evolve at all if it were not for the infinitesimally small chance of an asteroid hitting the earth and causing the demise of the dinosaurs. This sums up the title of the book in a nutshell. It is also fascinating to read about the far from perfect, one might say hit and miss, process by which we and other species develop from conception up until birth and beyond. The fragility ...more

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Nov 01, 2018 Gerald Prokop rated it really liked it

There is not a more charismatic, passionate and likeable "science popularizer" in the field right now, and anyone who comes close (deGrasse Tyson, Greene, et al) are in physics. Biology, with all of its political hangups and global, interdependence implications, is more pertinent. This book answers for all of the wonder and awe we confront in witnessing the depth of biology as a whole as well as what makes us human, and in doing so, very subtly meets creationism on it's own ground. ...more

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Dec 03, 2017 Annice Yeo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

This book makes me geek about anatomy, biology and genetics. It appeals into my mediocre secondary school knowledge on biology because it never overwhelms me with too much sciency jargon, anyone can enjoy it. Its amazing to see how the human body functions similarity to unlikely organisms you would associate our genetic likeliness to.

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Apr 15, 2019 David Nash rated it liked it

I don't think the title really matches the content. It was more of a look at each major human body part.

After a while it felt like work to get through it all.

Plus I didn't find the diagrams that helpful, and the writing needs more of them. They have a small, difficult to read font.

Overall it was a good read, but not as good as I'd hoped. ...more

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Mar 20, 2020 Hannah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Really enjoyed this one! Learnt about how we are descended from sea squids, how our thorax is like a spider monkey and our hands have larger digits and a separate thumb unlike chimps!. I also leant that our gestation is long for an ape and that this is probably because of our hips being too narrow for a longer pregnancy!

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Nov 09, 2016 Jethro Elsden rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Very interesting book, primarily looking at anatomy from an evolutionary perspective. It is a little hard in parts, especially if you are new to anatomy like me.

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Jan 16, 2017 Louise Davy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Alice Roberts has presented for and been a specialist on many British documentaries. This writing reflects her speech. A fascinating account of the development of a human.

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Jul 19, 2018 Gail Naylor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Absolutely fantastic. Not dumbed down and written with flair and humour. Some long and convoluted sentences here and there and a bit of repetition, but this is really an editing issue.

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Nov 30, 2018 Gillian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science

From egg and sperm cells through the development of the embryo, a story of evolution. Alice Roberts is a wonderful writer, the science is all there but it is readable.

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About Alice Roberts

Alice Roberts

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Alice May Roberts is an English anatomist, osteoarchaeologist, physical anthropologist, palaeopathologist, television presenter and author.

Roberts studied medicine and anatomy at Cardiff University, qualifying in 1997 as a physician with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB BCh) degree, having gained ...more

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“If you happen to be one of the people who has a split zygomaticus major muscle, where the lower part of it is tethered to the overlying skin, this will create a dimple in your cheek when you smile.” — 11 likes

“a human baby is born expecting culture just as a fish is born expecting water.” — 5 likes

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