Getting a Grip

This chapter was more scientific then the first chapter, it had some of the terms I was scared of, to start with. The one bone-two bones-lotsa blobs-digits made me a little confused but it made sense by the end. Neil had a great way to bring back the reader by putting them where he was years before. He knows how to relate to people that don’t have as much education as he does and he uses that to keep the reader interested. The addition of pictures helps to tie together the ideas and show the incredible similarities of many different animals’ bone structures to ours. In this chapter I was very amazed at how evolution can be traced through bone structures. I was very interested to learn that many creatures alive today even share our bone structure and through that similar structure paleontologists have followed that similarity to find our ancestors. The fossil that Neil had told us of in his first chapter was a connection to all humanities past. This fossil presented us with a fish that had the same bone structure as us, making it a contributor to the structure of our bones.
Alina Okerlund

Chapter 2: Getting a Grip

I personally like how Mr. Shubin starts the chapter by relating his experiences with cadavers, because he connects it to the very act of exhuming fossils out of the rocks--both meticulous processes. This section reveals to me his close-knit relationship with his field of paleontology. You can see that his fervor in paleontology spreads to anatomy; and that connection with other fields further illustrates the impact of his understanding that the fossils mean so much more than just mere bones. For his love of his studies, I am starting to respect him as a paleontologist and professor and person, and I would be interested to hear what he has to further prove his "inner fish" theories.
Also, I like how Mr. Shubin warrants the evolution theories by adding some "divine" touches by introducing Sir Charles Bell. According to Bell, "the structure of the hand was 'perfect' because it was complex and ideally arranged for the way we live" (Shubin 29). Sir Bell's theory that the perfect structure of humans come from a divine origin struck me clean--how does a fish with absolutely no hands suddenly develop "perfect" complex and ideal hands that fit every condition the world has to offer? Mr. Shubin's adventures with Tiktaalik reveal that fish developed the bones to crouch and push up/down to scout for prey, and he even provides geographical evidence along with different phases of bone development from different fossils. So Mr. Shubin is only showing us the subsequent phases of evolution from fish to mammal. I guess we just have to assume the fish form deformalities in bone structure which leads us the the deformed amphibian and the deformed mammal. So are we deformed with irregular bone structures or are we the "perfect" species from a "divine origin?"