Neil Shubin Quotations

It could flex the elbow and extend the wrist so the tip of the fin could lie against the ground. It could do a push-up.

It could either push itself straight up and down or pull itself forward. It more likely flopped around like a seal rather than walked like a horse.

It is a fish that shows a surprising combination of characteristics of land-living animals.

We were staring at the origin of a piece of our own bodies inside this 375-million-year-old fish. We had a fish with a wrist.

With respect to the ZPA, what kind of digit develops depends on how close the digit is to the source of Sonic hedgehog.

When the finely tuned balance among the different parts of bodies breaks down, the individual creature can die. A cancerous tumor, for example, is born when one batch of cells no longer cooperates with others. By dividing endlessly, or by failing to die properly, these cells can destroy the necessary balance that makes a living individual person. Cancers break the rules that allow cells to cooperate with one another. Like bullies who break cooperative societies, cancers behave in their own best interest until they kill their larger community, the human body.

We were not designed rationally, but are products of a convoluted history.

What we saw was a real mosaic between characteristics of fish and those previously thought to be only in land animals. The fossil was showing us how creatures were assembled over time to live on land.

When we got back into the lab, we removed the rock from the bone, and we began to find some really significant stuff.

It took a long time for us to figure out really the extent of what we had.