Your Inner Fish

"Your Inner Fish" is an award-winning tour through the origins of life on Earth.  "The Universe Within" is a kind of sequel by the same author. It's all written in the dumbed down style popular for an audience who squeaked through High School but acquired an interest in Science later in life, too late to really speak the language. Even so, it's interesting stuff, mainly because it's full of insight into why the author, Neil Shubin, has devoted his life to the study of little teeth and shark-embryos. These books are shot through with a sense of awe and discovery. They give the reader a chance to re-discover the most important insight in all of Science -- the deep and pervasive unity of life on Earth.

This was the fundamental insight of Darwin. Following quickly on its heels is the best question ever asked by a Scientist: Why are there so many similarities? Of course, the answer, still controversial in the dark caverns of American fundamentalism, is that we are all descended from a common ancestor. What Shubins books do is take the reader on a personal journey of discovery to create a deep feeling for the unity of life and the vast stretches of time and the process that lead from single celled organisms to human beings and the process by which Scientists like himself tease out the details of this astonishing story.

Sadly, especially for Shubin's target audience, the issue of "evolution" is all about the Bible versus Science. On one "side" of this straw man debate, we have people who claim that the text of the Bible (as they interpret it) trumps the vast evidence coming from geology, palaeontology, biology and virtually all of Science. On the other "side" we have the bulk of the public who shake their heads at the ignorance of the first group without every really coming to grips with the awesome fact of evolution itself. On both sides of this "debate" it's about what you "believe" in or what authorities tell you they believe, not what the  facts themselves have to say-- not the stunning and unexpected facts we have discovered about life itself. 

Part of Shubin's genius is to allow the reader to look over his shoulder as he frames the questions, plans the expeditions and walks the rocks searching for that tiny bit of tooth that fills in one more tiny gap in the story of our evolutionary journey.  It's all about "connecting the dots" and very very detailed questions, such as "How did a fish evolve a hand?" or "How does an embryo 'know' how to make a hand rather than a wing"? 

Is it not fantastic that what made my embryonic self grow a hand is the same set of genes that grow wings on a fruit fly? A few weeks after conception, the bones and nerves in my head were alarmingly similar to those of a shark at the same stage of life. Of course we all "know" (if we have been paying attention) that we are all descended from the same blob in the primeval soup, but Shubin piles up enough specific evidence from enough completely different sources that you start to feel the significance, literally, in your bones. Beyond telling your the big conclusions, beyond telling you about the experiments and findings, Shubin seduces the reader into thinking like a Scientist -- absorbing the sense of wonder at the endlessly surprising and wonderful answers we get from our simple questions.

Why is this relevant to the Christian Skeptic? Well, my outlook is based on the really big and important facts. For these important facts, mere "belief" is irrelevant. We need to look over the shoulder of the Scientist, heft the fossils in our own hands, follow the debates and alternate interpretations. We need to cherish everything we can know about what we are.