Overview Of Your Inner Fish By Neil Shubin

There is a common misconception about the field of paleontology. Many people believe it’s boring, that it’s irrelevant, and that it’s even a waste of time. However, as award winning paleontologist and author Neil Shubin argues in his novel, Your Inner Fish, the field of paleontology has the potential to change the way we view our bodies. Shubin rose to fame in the mid ‘00s after discovering a brand new fossil on the coast of Ellesmere Island. This fossil was of a creature that was part land animal and part fish, containing the flat head and joints of a land animal and the fins and webbing of a fish. Naming this animal Tiktaalik, Shubin wrote, “This fish doesn’t just tell us about fish; it also contains a piece of us” (67). The arrangement of

Towards the end of Your Inner Fish, Shubin creates a human family tree that begins with multicellularity in the form of jellyfish and skulls in the form of fish, and ends with a three boned middle ear in the form of a gopher and bipedal gait in our current form. As Shubin explains, “Virtually every illness we suffer has some historical component… different branches from the tree of life inside us— from ancient humans, to amphibians and fish, and finally to microbes— come back to pester us today” (469). The diseases that humans get are not as random as they may seem. For instance, heart disease, one of the leading causes of death in humans today, has its roots in the layout of the human body. The heart pumps blood to the organs of the body through the arteries, but it’s difficult for the body to pump blood ‘upstream’, so there are two features that aid with this process. One is a series of valves that help the blood go up and stop it from moving down, and the other is leg muscles, which pump blood up the leg veins. This system is devised to work in an active being, however, modern humans live a much more sedentary lifestyle than their ancestors. Thus, blood can pool in the veins and cause the valves to fail, which sets off a chain reaction that can end in a variety of medical problems. While all of this may not sound revolutionary,

By understanding the connection between humans and the bacteria thanks to their knowledge of evolutionary history, they were able to replicate the effects of the disease in the bacteria. Research like this not only emphasizes the importance of evolutionary history, but it also has the potential to cure deadly diseases, like the one previously mentioned. Our biology class has studied cells as well, observing patterns through microscopes and identifying different parts of the cell, such as the nucleus and cell wall. Though we haven’t learned much about the mitochondria yet, the research discussed in this book has made me more curious about mitochondria and its role in the human