Ch 2: Get a Grip!

Chapter two of Your Inner Fish was as enjoyable as the first chapter. I didn't expect Shubin to start the chapter with his experience of his first human dissection. I'm personally more interested in the mental fields of science like psychology rather than the physical ones like anatomy. Still, it was fascinating to find out that we evolved from fish. I hear the story about evolving from monkeys all the time, but the fact that the origins traced from mammals to reptiles to amphibians to fish in truly incredible. The visuals really helped a lot this chapter. I was never good at anatomy and memorizing the types of bones in the body, so I had a hard time picturing what bone went where. Also, trying to remember the names of all the ancient species Shubin goes over and which bone structures each one had could get very tiring and confusing after a while with only text to reference. Once I saw the diagrams, it was easy to distinguish them. Charles Darwin also played a big role in explaining the evolution of sea-creatures to land-creatures with his theory of "natural selection". As with most environments, there were predators in the area the Tiktaalik lived. Shubin states that its only options were to "get big, get armor, or get out of the water". In other words, it had to evolve in order to survive. This is known today (thanks to Darwin) as "survival of the fittest". Apparently the Tiktaalik ended up as one of the fittest. We can attribute us humans being who we are today to them. I thought it was clever how Shubin described the Tiktaalik's ablilty to bend its elbows and wrists by saying it could "drop and give us twenty" instead of explaining it in technical terms. It put the image of this strange creature doing push-ups on a muddy flat millions of years ago. It provides humor and gives the reader a break from all the serious and educational stuff. It also reinforces the connection of similarities between fish and humans that Shubin tries to emphazise throughout the novel. Once again, I'm looking forward to reading more of Your Inner Fish and learning more about our fishy ancestors.

~Bryanna Streeter :)