Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and ape-like primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened.
We have now arrived at a remarkable moment—prehistoric fossils coupled with new DNA technology have given us the tools to answer some of the basic questions of our existence: How do big changes in evolution happen? Is our presence on Earth the product of mere chance? This new science reveals a multibillion-year evolutionary history filled with twists and turns, trial and error, accident and invention.
Now, Neil Shubin, gives us a lively and accessible account of the great transformations in the history of life on Earth in "Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA."
