This is a really superb book about a prediction made by the theory of evolution which was followed up by the author and resulted in the momentous discovery of Tiktaalik. ("We were the Tiktaaliks. We were exterminated" - a little bit of Doctor Who humor there...). There was a gap in the flow of evolution from what one fossil (Panderichthys) represented as a fish, and what the next fossil in line (Acanthostega) represented in terms of fish coming out onto land over time. Panderichthys was some 380 million years old. Acanthostega was around 365 million years old.
You see that fifteen million year gap? That's the kind of thing that creationists like to point to when they make their baseless claim that evolution is "just a theory". Since they can present no scientific evidence supporting their position, creationists are necessarily reduced to pointing out what they blindly believe are gaps or errors in the scientific theory of evolution.
The author, Neil Shubin, and his colleagues decided that if there was a evolutonary link between Panderichthys) and Acanthostega - while not necessarily a direct one between the two, but if there existed any such thing - It would be found in rocks datable between those two fossils. Such rocks were to be found on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, so Shubin and co went there and dig - and lo and behold, they found the transitonal form exactly where prediction said it would be, and evolution was vindicated once again.
This book covers more than just Tiktaalik though. It goes on to discuss several curiosities we humans have which cannot be explained if we were specially created by a god, or if we were intelligently designed - because we are most assuredly not intelligently designed, as Shubin demosntrates. What Shubin shows here is that you can only explain various traits, organs, and behaviors we humans exhibit, by evolution. They're inexplicable, not to say inexcusable, if there was some sort of intelligent design! I commend this book completely.
