Chapter 2: Getting a Grip

I found the beginning of the chapter to be pretty interesting, the way how Shubin's first human dissection influenced how he connected humans and animals. By describing personal events and feelings, Shubin attempts to create a bond between him and the reader, so that the reader will have a clearer view of the topic. When Shubin describes Owen's findings on the bone structure of the human arm as, "one bone-two bones-lotsa blobs-digits pattern," (32) it helps the reader understand what he is actually describing. The scientific names don't matter, but what and how we can learn from it are. The diagram in which Shubin shows images of a variety of animal arms helped me picture how similar our bone structure is, even if on the outside it looks nothing similar at all.

The Tiktaalik fossil serves the purpose of bridging the gap between fish and land dwellers, evident through the similarity in hand bone structure. Shubin's comparison of the Tiktaalik's ability to do things thats humans could do, such as push-ups, astounds me. I could not imagine that we humans are so closely related to such old animals. The main interest I had in this chapter was that Shubin was not just studying an old animal just see what it was, but how that animal helps us discover our origins and uncover our unknown ancestors.