Adams Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form

For instance, after regarding the face, its relative hairlessness, the thirty-six ways of moving the eyes, and the way faces are inherited as shown by the photos of your ancestors on the mantel, Sims treats us to pages about the Face on Mars. What this silly case, and all the other faces-in-the randomness manifestations, show is that we are evolutionarily programmed to see faces even if they arent faces. Not only do newborns know to fix their gaze on faces (thereby getting attention from the more competent humans around them), but predators such as ourselves are better off mistakenly making a snap judgement "Hey, theres a face!" and then sheepishly refining the assessment if it really isnt one. Simss discussion of the eye includes binocular vision, the fashion appeal of sunglasses, and Medusa who could turn to stone anyone who looked into her eyes. It winds up with "the argument from design," famously expressed by William Paley in 1802, and demolished by evolution since then. Darwin himself was troubled by the complexity of the eye, and (as befits a good theoretician) he accepted that this could be taken as an argument against natural selection. These worries proved groundless, as biologists learned of the connections between primitive eyes (like those in flatworms) and complicated ones like our own. As befits the books title, there is plenty here about navels. A professor of physics, Karl Kruszelnicki, has solved the longstanding mystery of why so much fluff gets in them (and he was awarded an IgNobel prize by the science humor magazine _The Annals of Improbable Research_). Kruszelnicki did a year-long, self-funded study of various navels, shaved and unshaved, to confirm "... his theory that abdominal hairs serve as a conveyor belt for transporting fibers upward from underwear."

It is really impossible to summarize the contents of a volume like this whose every chapter is packed with factual amusements. Read here about the agonizing lip problems of Louis Armstrong. Learn why Barbies breasts have resulted in a fatwa against her from Kuwait. Reflect that lexicographer Samuel Johnson refused to put terms for private parts into his dictionary, and now "johnson" is widely accepted as slang for "penis" (resulting in the witty chapter title "Boswells Johnson," having to do with, among other things, the sexual adventures of Johnsons biographer.) Consider why the male figure on the plaque carried through the universe by Pioneer 10 has a penis, but the female has no vulva. Learn how the French do not French kiss, but instead Italian kiss. Any fan of trivia, presented with an eye to fun rather than strictly to erudition, will learn plenty here, and laugh (often in self-recognition) many times besides.