Ch 5: Getting Ahead

The way Shubin described that at first he was confused how the head and the nerves (cranial nerves) running through it worked; I can relate completely because I was very confused at first too. But, the examples that Shubin gave of the plumbing and the big jumbo of wires interlaced in his laboratory; he explained very well that the people who designed the building made it to comfort the scientists of that certain time period. Meaning that the wires were made to look a certain way because of the history of that time. Shubin also explains that how our heads and nerves inside our head look today are because of the constant developments and changes they have undergone throughout the years; meaning how they have evolved over the years. I would say that I couldn't believe that worms and humans were related when worms don't even have bones, but after reading the first couple of chapters, Shubin has convinced me that there is no creature on this earth that we humans don't share a similarity with. The way he showed diagrams of how sharks and humans have 4 arches definitely shows how similar we are to sharks. This chapter by far was the most interesting because it also shows how genes can be modified in any of the arches and it could cause a different organ or the same organ to be made in two arches. I found that extremely interesting.