Chapter Two: Getting a Grip

The beginning of chapter two is what grasped my attention for the rest of the chapter. The whole uncovering the hand which used to be real, functioning, and had belonged to someone for some reason caught my attention and touched me emotionally. As Shubin moves on, he talks about how a single hand does so much for us and is also another similarity we have with other species. The diagram was perfect, it compared and constrated humans to lizards and to even humpback whales, truly showing how similar they all structured. From the outside, a bats wing and a humans hand look nothing alike, but when you look carefully at the bone structure you see it. Theres one bone that connects to two bones that then connects to the fingers or "little blobs". I found this amazing and it made me realized and see that these structures did not look similar by chance, they are similar because of evolution.

Later, Shubin described how the Tiktaalik had the ability to do a push-up, and I honestly had to read that more than once because I could not see a fish doing a push-up. He described how this fish could bend its elbow and then bend its wrist to create a palm which then leads to a position of doing a push-up, I was amazed. It's not the fact that a fish could do a push up that amazes me, but more of how Tiktaalik gets the ball rolling on the evolution towards humans. Tiktaalik shows the evolution and progress of developing shoulders and wrists all thanks for wanting to survive.

All I can say, thank you dear evolution.

-Ellie Chung