Ch 1 Finding Your Inner Fish

Honestly when I saw this book I thought it'd be another bore. Another useless book with boring facts and useless information. Learning about how how our ancestors were fishes and the "transitional species" from water to land didn't sound all that fun. Even the author of this book had a weird name, Neil Shubin. Then...I completed Chapter 1.

So I learned the author is really into his work. He isn't the typical 9-5 job guy. He lives and breathes his job. I really like his insight about his work. He explains it...in a fascinating way. I always thought of history as different, distinct time period that had nothing to do with each other. With different species and geological conditions that had nothing to do with each other. By reading, I learned everything is connected. We can find similar characteristics with species that are totally opposite of one another!

Another cool thing I really thought Chapter 1 presented was how to find fossils. I always thought that they just picked a random spot, prayed to God something was there, and bam; there's your fossil. But to my surprise, there's a whole process to finding a fossil. There's geological conditions of the rocks, a certain age of the rocks, and rocks' exposure to the surface.

This chapter has corrected some of my misinformed views and I hope it continues to do so with more intriguing ideas.

-Matthew Xa