Teeth and Evolution

First of all, i agree with the majority of the previous posters; that this chapter was pretty boring. Especially since the greater part of the first half was all about his looking for fossils in a dessert with a couple of colleagues, then becoming disappointed after he would come out empty-handed while his partners would return with bags full of fossils. My attitude toward the chapter began to change when he actually began finding fossils and when he found the tritheledont. Which was actually found in the lab, where most discoveries are made, not the field. The Shubin began to elaborate on teeth, the main purpose of this chapter which hadn't really been covered until now, and the chapter got a little more interesting. I found it very transfixing that teeth, just those little white things in or mouth which we hate sometimes due to the dentist, are responsible for evolution and our existence. Never would I have thought something so small as teeth could be capable of such a large feat.

They're everywhere too: in mouths and a layer on the the outside of skin. So, the teeth were definitely what I liked about this chapter most, once they finally became the subject of the chapter. I also appreciated that Shubin kind of summed up the previous chapters in the last couple paragraphs.