The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us

Alice Roberts — 2015

In this compulsively readable book, Dr. Alice Roberts lays out the miraculously strange way in which the human body grows from a chemical (DNA) into a living, sentient being. A longtime professor and well-known TV presenter, Dr. Roberts is also an author of unusual ability, capable of synthesizing complex ideas and packing dense scientific information into lucid, beautiful prose. Bringing together the latest scientific discoveries and drawing on interviews with scientists from around the world, Dr. Roberts illustrates that our evolution has resulted in something that is awe-inspiring yet far from perfect. Our embryonic development is a quirky mix of new and old, with strokes of genius alongside accommodated glitches and imperfections that are all inherited from distant ancestors. For instance, our development and evolutionary past explains why, as embryos, we have what look like gills, and as adults we suffer from back pain. This is a tale of discovery, about ourselves and our environment, that explores why and how we have developed as we have, looking at the development of human physiognomy through the various lenses of embryology, genetics, anatomy, evolution, and zoology. It combines the remarkable set of skills Alice Roberts possesses as a medical doctor, anatomist, osteoarchaeologist, and writer. As Richard Dawkins put it, the reader emerges from her book "entertained and with a deeper understanding of yourself."

Reviews

Pavonini@papaver

Sep 25, 2022

Updated my rating to three rather than four stars, not because the book is bad (it's not), but because I thought it was rather confused about who it was for. There would be sections that I imagine are accessible to the layperson, then rather technical parts with a lot of anatomy jargon. This mix meant that I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to. The idea behind the book is great, but I think I'd rather a proper textbook *or* a more accessible pop-science book rather than an uneasy hybrid. I will be returning to it though, and it's full of useful resources at the back. It definitely piqued my interest in comparative anatomy. I'll want to read [b:Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body|1662160|Your Inner Fish A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body|Neil Shubin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320439515s/1662160.jpg|1656975] to complement this one I think. The sections on reproductive anatomy, the heart, and bipedalism were all fascinating to me. As someone who didn't specialise in humans, there's a lot to learn. The progression of ideas was logical, and I'm glad there was an explicit challenging of the "ladder of evolution" idea. There's the inevitable appearance of the recapitulation theory, and good explanations for why that isn't the best one. If you already have a background in life sciences this can introduce you to a whole area you may have neglected, and there's something to be said for evolutionary examples taken from the human body itself - they are very relatable.