Chapter 1: Finding Your Inner Fish

From this chapter the experience that the author puts us through is very diverse. I enjoyed the beginning of the preface when he was talking about his own experience teaching a human anatomy class in college when he was a paleontologist. He takes the reader's from the perspective of an outsider looking in. In the first page Shubin talks about how ancient bones can be a path to knowledge and can somehow explain how we became the way we are as humans. He explains how the fossils are found in the soil and where paleontologists search to find fossils when they look. I found it very interesting during this part because I was unaware of the fact that fossils can not be found in volcanic areas and are more common in lakes and oceans. I was very moved when Shubin said that "every rock sitting on the ground has a story to tell" and to all areas does this result to be true. Just one ancient rock could tell scientists today climate, animal ancestry, location, etc. To have one rock that could change the world and how we know it is fascinating, that that may be a reason that people go into the paleontology field, because they discover so many new finds. Though it can be seen that the finds that are found are not very easily conceivable.