Your Inner Fish

A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

By: Neil Shubin

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today’s most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish.

Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of anatomy who discovered Tiktaalik - the “missing link” that made headlines around the world in April 2006 - tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth. By examining fossils and DNA, Shubin shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our head is organized like that of a long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genome look and function like those of worms and bacteria.

Shubin makes us see ourselves and our world in a completely new light.

Your Inner Fish is science writing at its finest - enlightening, accessible, and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

©2008 Neil Shubin (P)2008 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

“A delightful introduction to our skeletal structure, viscera and other vital parts - and evidence that learning the secrets of the human body need not unhinge you. ...[Shubin] is a warm and disarming guide....Future researchers, aware that the ingredients of our evolutionary precursors are part of the human recipe, may well find new ways to prevent the wear and tear on our fish-begotten bodies. And who knows? Maybe one or two of them will have had their first taste of the marvels of human evolution in Neil Shubin’s anatomy class.” (Los Angeles Times)

“The antievolution crowd is always asking where the missing links in the descent of man are. Well, paleontologist Shubin actually discovered one....A crackerjack comparative anatomist, he uses his find to launch a voyage of discovery about the evolutionary evidence we can readily see at hand....Shubin relays all this exciting evidence and reasoning so clearly that no general-interest library should be without this book.” (Booklist, starred review)

“With infectious enthusiasm, unfailing clarity, and laugh-out-loud humor, Neil Shubin has created a book on paleontology, genetics, genomics, and anatomy that is almost impossible to put down. In telling the story of why we are who we are, Shubin does more than show us our inner fish; he awakens and excites the inner scientist in us all.” (Pauline Chen, author of Final Exam)

Informative and entertaining!

Your Inner Fish
A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
By: Neil Shubin
This was a terrific look at how nature was a recycler of ideas! Through the years if something didn't work nature didn't necessarily make a new creature but used recycled ideas on creatures to see where that would lead. The book just didn't cover paleontology but also genetics, biology, and more. It was very informative and interesting! The way the information is presented is light and comfortable, touch of humor, and easy to follow. If this genre interests you, then this is a must read!
Narration by Marc Cashmere is excellent also.

This is how the science is done.

Any additional comments?

I loved this book not only because it's insightful but also because it does one thing that so few other books about the topic do: It doesn't mention for a second the argument if evolution is true.

This is not yet another book attempting to convince the reader that evolution is true, but jumps straight into the evidence the scientists have accumulated, the kind of experiments biologists do and explains how many mechanisms, that today we take for granted, have evolved, and how our ancient ancestors still manifest themselves in our biology:
From how our skulls were shaped from ribs, to how our hands know where is the pinky and where is the thumb, to how the sacks of fluid that fish use to orient themselves in the stream ended up as our ears.

This book comes from someone that actually has done the science, and was in the field and in lab.

It's not an textbook, but a view into the biology and paleontology, helped by great narration from Marc Cashman, I highly recommend to anyone that is curious about the process through which we learn about ourselves and our place in the animal kingdom.

So good

Absolutely fascinating material. As someone who didn’t take many biology classes (and none in anatomy/physiology or bio-chem), but who still finds these subjects interesting, I found this book to be, basically, mind-blowing. So many cool connections that I never would have expected. This is a book i would recommend to friends. Narrator nailed it as well, I think he matched the author’s tone and levels of nerdy excitement at the right places.

Your Outer Reader

Shubin connects our deep evolutionary history with our current anatomy and structure. I really enjoyed learning about paleontology, how fossil research works (and why it is so important) and the emerging integration of genetic with fossil research.

In his next book I hope Shubin spends more time drawing larger connections between his field and the larger project of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. It would be great to bring his deep evolution story about our earliest development into the world of behavior.

Shubin is a good writer and an accomplished scientist. Highly recommended.

Stellar performance

I love science, & I could feel Neil's excitement for discovery. Great for young science minds.

It’s all in the ending

Fantastic journey through the evolution of everything. But the way the last two chapters brings it all together is amazing!

Evolutionary history of the sensory organs

Headline says my biggest take away. Short and sweet so the science never feels dry. Good pace and narration.

inner fish for Stella reviews and homework on

this was a good notes and learning for you on grades . time to move on.

Clear, Entertaining, Full of Surprises

The author masterfully avoids the use of technical terms without losing the interest of people who are reasonably familiar with them. He repeatedly translates statistical facts into surprising examples demonstrating what those facts mean. He writes in a pleasantly warm, neighborly style.

This is an enthralling , informative book for anyone from teens to adults. It is one skillful tale after another telling us how we know where we've come from and what that ancient ancestry means inside us today.

Magnificent book about how we got here.

Just superbe, lucid and vivid. I would highly recomend this book to whoever wants to understand how we got here.