Fans of science will be particularly thrilled with PBS' new series Your Inner Fish, a three-part journey over three weeks presented by Dr. Neil Shubin, author of the book of the same name. The premise of Your Inner Fish is, to quote Dr. Shubin, "How deeply connected we are to the rest of life on our planet. Our genes and cells and organs all contain evidence of this connection. It's been discovered by cracking rocks in the field, studying genomes in laboratories, and looking at lots of other evidence. The outcome of these discoveries is seeing so clearly that we're part of the tree of life." Could there be a better come-on line than those?
Shubin is a delightful presence -- super-smart, personable and absolutely convincing. He, along with his fellow scientists including biologists, paleontologists, and anthropologists come together to take us along the absolutely fascinating journey through the millions of years of development it took to end up with human beings. This is a celebration of evolution all the way, and it's compelling from
The PBS website for Your Inner Fish is filled with a plethora of engaging features as well as oodles of educational material for teachers who should be loving this wonderful series for bringing this subject alive for their students. Even more wonderful is the fact that the poster fish for this amazing journey has got to be the Tiktaalik, a fossil fish found in Arctic Canada that is the link to the moment that fish emerged from the sea to walk on land. Such an achievement, and such an adorable Tiktaalik! Find out more about it on his official University of Chicago webpage. If Jurassic Park made velociraptors cool, then Your Inner Fish will make Tiktaalik everybody's favorite walking fish.
Right now is a great time to be a science supporter and a TV watcher. Both Cosmos and now Your Inner Fish, as well as the regularly terrific NOVA and assorted offerings on Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Animal Planet, Nat Geo and elsewhere are doing good work offering up an endlessly interesting selection of science-oriented programming all over the spectrum. For all the superstition and silly pseudo-science out there -- and for as much as I love the crazy antics of the folks on Finding Bigfoot, for example -- there is nothing like the real thing.
Your Inner Fish premieres tonight on your local PBS station, probably at 10pm. Be sure to check out the website, too!
Here is a short preview of the excitement coming your way on Your Inner Fish:
The charming Tiktaalik gets his own song, and it's a catchy one -- he's so photogenic!
Dr. Neil Shubin giving a lecture on "Finding Your Inner Fish" for University of California Television:
Here is Dr. Shubin giving a talk during The Year of Darwin --
And just in case you didn't know what Mr. Henry Limpet as played by Don Knotts in the charming 1963 film The Incredible Mr. Limpet thought about fish, here is a short clip and his philosophy in the song "I Wish I Were a Fish" --
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