Chapter 2: Getting a Grip

When I started to read chapter 2, it struck me as odd that although Shubin was a paleontologist, he was in a medical anatomy lab dissecting a human cadaver. However, as the chapter progressed, I came to understand that a paleontologist needs to know the structure of the body so that he may be able to know which fossil is for which part if he were to discover something. It was peculiar to read that that he didn't feel affected that he was dissecting a human until he got to the hand. However, I started to understand why he felt that way because the one thing that may connect every species was the hand. Seeing the hand and feeling the connection just struck him that he was dissecting, in actuality, someone instead of a doll.
Like the previous posts, I agree that the diagrams help to make the reading more pellucid. If there had been no diagram, it would have been hard for me to imagine that the hand of a human could be similar to the hand of a bat. Because of the diagrams, I was able to see, as well as read, that the basic structure of the hand of ever species is "one bone, followed by two bones, then little blobs, then fingers or toes"
As I read more into the chapter, I became more immersed into it. For me, it was beyond my imagination that the ancestor of a very simple fish like a goldfish could have ever had been able to do a pushup. Tiktaalik seems like a very interesting fossil and I look forward to reading more about it.