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)

Listen for the Big Picture

Glad I persevered with this one! Draws a oneness between all living things. Beautifully written.

Not to be missed!

Where does Your Inner Fish rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

can't say

What other book might you compare Your Inner Fish to and why?

shubin's other book---universe within

What does Marc Cashman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

excellent reading style with right pauses and emphases

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

narrator understands shubin's humour .

Any additional comments?

no

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.

Shubin's enthusiasm is infectious

We humans have bodies that are unique in many ways. But we also share similarities with every other animal on the planet, including some of the oldest creatures ever to walk, swim or wiggle on earth. That's the central theme of Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, which uncovers striking parallels between our bodies and those of reptiles, fish, worms and even bacteria.

Why do all mammals have three middle ear bones? How is it that every land-dwelling creature has four limbs with a similar arrangement of bones? This book probes these and other questions, showing how biologists, paleontologists and geneticists are uncovering answers. From listening to this book I learned why men are prone to suffer hernias (blame sharks), why we get the hiccups (blame fish and tadpoles) and how we came to develop color vision (thank primeval forests with a rich palate of things that were good to eat).

Shubin's infectious enthusiasm for science and discovery drives the narrative. He recounts an astonishing story of how we can use the similarities between animals, and the timeline of when and where certain features developed, to find new fossils linking different kinds of creatures. In 2006, Shubin and his team discovered tikaalik, a fish with primitive, limb-like fins it could use to do "pushups" and poke its head out of the water.

I admit to feeling lost at times and needing to rewind large sections of the audiobook, which I blame on my own ignorance of genetics and embryology rather than on the author. Once I get more science reading under my belt, I'll likely return to this book, and I also plan to watch the PBS series of the same name.

Incredibly informative!!!

I actually feel smarter for having listened to this book. Enough science to keep you engaged but with more everyday explanations and absolutely great examples (except for maybe the clown thing towards the end) provided to push home the points spoken of.

At first I thought it just be a run of the mill science book because it was not as long as I’d thought but there’s just so much information packed it and none of it seems filler information, it’s all relevant to the topic of the chapter.

Definitely one of my top 3 favorite science books!!

Wow

Would you consider the audio edition of Your Inner Fish to be better than the print version?

This book goes through great evolution evidence. If your looking for a place to start learning this is it.

Have you listened to any of Marc Cashman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

just awe lots of awe

Any additional comments?

Read it!

Fabulous

Highly recommended
It confirms how we all are related
I go for the next Shubin book

Be entertained and educated

Worthwhile! Great information, some of it above the average education level but not so pedantic as to be incomprehensible. Lots of information. Made me take a second look at the history of bodies. Good read.