Customer Reviews:
 One of the most interesting books I have read June 11, 2008
This author is knowledgeable and has a good sense of humor. He has effective ways of explaining things and great examples. The material is most interesting. I recommend it to everyone, especially people interested in biology.
Great clarity from a professional in the field June 10, 2008
This is a great little book. Shubin is a professional palaeontological player in his own right and is the person most directly responsible for the discovery of Tiktaalik, an important transitional form in the evolution of amphibians from their lungfish ancestors. Tiktaalik itself, and the process of discovery, play a large role in the story and serve to refute creationist claims that evolution makes no predictions, as Shubin's team predicted where this transition would take place to a single stratum of alluvial sedimentary rock in a particular location.
The remainder of the text covers the various vestiges and side-effects of our fish ancestry, such as the apparent chaos of the cranial nerves and its resolution as a series of effects of the embryonic gill-arches from which our modern skull develops.
A fascinating read with a number of useful new insights.
A whale of a tale. May 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a terrific book.
Shubin, discover of the famous Tiktaalik fossil bridging the gap between fish and land-animals, explains how data from molecular biology, comparative anatomy, embryology, and paleontology shine a light on our evolutionary past.
Shubin has taught college-level anatomy courses, and both his expertise and his ability to communicate really show. He presents a number of very interesting topics, in each case providing enough detail to be informative, but not so much that it ever becomes boring.
In several cases it was like reading a detective story, where one investigator in one field finds one tantalizing clue, which prompts another investigator in a different field to find another tantalizing clue, until finally there is an entire, complex web of mutually reinforcing evidence pointing to a single conclusion. It was just a fascinating, intellectual exercise.
My favorite chapters were the ones on Shubin's search for Tiktaalik and how that fossil helps illustrate the evolution of hands, how teeth help scientists trace the evolutionary pathway from fish to mammals (BTW, the similarity of the tooth-making process to the process for making hair, feathers, and breasts was also fascinating), the evolution of cranial nerves, and the evolution of bodies and body plans. There were also chapters on the evolution of our eyes, ears, and sense of smell.
All in all, a fascinating read.
It Tiktaaliks all the right boxes May 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased this book on impulse as it was evident at a glance just how well edited and put together it was. I learned a great deal and my only complaint is that the cover of the UK hardback was not half as nice as the one featuring the outstanding fossil - Tiktaalik.
This is a vertebrate paleontology book with strong underlying genetic, evolutionary and anatomical themes. If anything the book kept me asking more questions and it filled in the gaps of the following series -
Eusthenopteron, Panderichthys, Acanthostega, Ichthyostega with the description of the discovery of Tiktaalik. One more star in the VP pantheon representing a missing link in the ancestry of creatures that culminated in modern vertebrates. In a lighter vein, the book showed me just how close I was to a shark or a ray or even to a sponge. Yes, this book made the genetic linkages between organisms and their developmental heritages so perspicacious.
It was easy to read, reasonably well illustrated and above all quite a simple rendition of a complex subject. In the end, it humbles the reader into acknowledging his/her affinity with the natural world. That we are not creatures apart from it.
I expect the editors helped erase out back slapping gestures on the heros of this story such as Jarvik, Clack and Romer - that would however, perhaps be another story - as would more information on lungfish, the coelocanth ... this is a very fishy sort of book and now more than ever, I need to know my kinship to them.
In the end a simple phylogenetic framework is indicated and how we arrive at branching trees that describe our ancestry. I hope this book stimulates more work into conservation and taxonomic research which is very poorly funded.
The family of life on Earth May 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While this book offers an excellent presentation of evolution, the surprise for many readers is likely to be the realization of just how closely related life is on this planet. Most people, even those who are not in denial about evolution, probably do not feel particularly close to fish, for example. After reading this book, however, they will.
A few years ago I interviewed Jack Horner, the famed paleontologist, and he said that birds are dinosaurs; we just gave them a different name.
After reading this book, I wonder if we are not fish, called by another name.
I highly recommend this book.
--Guy P. Harrison, author of 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God
I also recommend:
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
Evolution Boxed Set
The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans
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