Your Inner Fish

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

De: Neil Shubin

Narrado por: Marc Cashman

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

Informative, interesting, not 100% entertaining

The book was certainly informative, though it lacked the profundity or narrative of some other non-fiction works (ie. the Selfish Gene, Viral Storm). I certainly learned a lot anatomically, but I never truly felt "hooked." Nonetheless, I would recommend this to anyone new to (or even well-versed in) evolutionary biology. It was certainly worth the listen.

Recommended further reading - Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

Good material, dry recital.

The text itself is very interesting, a look at our evolutionary history through other creatures and the fossil record. It's written in a style so as to be accessable and interesting, with many anecdotes and personal experiences littered throughout.

The narration is technically proficient, never hard to understand or confused. But, while the book itself tries hard to inform without being a textbook, the narration is dry and emotionless, greatly diluting that strength. The narrator infused as much emotion to where the book is rueful, excited, or "choked up" as it did where it described the mechanics of experiments.

5 stars!

Excellent story of one mans search for a fish! and so much more. loved this book and all the information and scientific discoveries that help us better understand evolution and how we are the way we are today. Narration was good, could have been better.

I loved this book. Not a normal commentary

I was worried this would be another boring Summer reading assignment for AP Bio, but this is now one of my favorite books!

Making science accessible

This book does a great job at explaining how our bodies evolved into what they are today. The language is engaging and easy to understand.