I am indebted to many people for their insights, advice, assistance, and support during the writing and production of this book. Personally, I am grateful to my wife, Ann Johnson Prum, for her enthusiastic encouragement, helpful insights, editing advice, patience, and understanding along the way. I also thank my children, Gus, Owen, and Liam, for their open-hearted curiosity and interest. I thank my twin sister, Katherine, for her inspiration and understanding. Living shared, parallel lives as children had an immeasurable impact on me, my interest in feminism, and in the deep mystery of the subjective experiences of others. I would like to thank my parents, Bruce Prum and Joan Gahan Prum, who encouraged my interest in birds, science, and travel from my earliest days.
The writing of this book was supported by several fellowships. The book was begun in 2011–12 during an Ikerbasque Science Fellowship from the Ikerbasque Science Foundation and the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) in Donostia–San Sebastian, Spain. I am grateful to Pedro Miguel Echenique and Javier Aizpurua at the DIPC for their interest and support. The book was (nearly) completed during a fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2015. The “Wiko” provided a marvelously productive, scholarly, and collegial environment, and I thank the many new friends I met there. The project was also supported by funds from the William Robertson Coe Fund at Yale University and by a fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation.
I am thankful to Michael DiGiorgio and Rebecca Gelernter for their beautiful drawings and illustrations and to Juan José Arango, Brett Benz, Rafael Bessa, Marc Chrétien, Michael Dolittle, Ronan Donovan, Rodrigo Gavaria Obregón, Tim Laman, Kevin McCracken, Bryan Pfeiffer, João Quental, Ed Scholes, and Jim Zipp for permission to reproduce their lovely photographs.
The content and direction of the book were shaped and improved by many conversations and exchanges with and insights and comments from numerous colleagues and friends, including: Suzanne Alonzo, Ian Ayres, Dorit Bar-On, David Booth, Gerry Borgia, Brian Borovsky, Patricia Brennan, James Bundy, Tim Caro, Barbara Caspers, Innes Cuthill, Anne Dailey, Jared Diamond, Elizabeth Dillon, Michael Donoghue, Justin Eichenlaub, Teresa Feo, Michael Frame, Rich and Barbara Franke, Jennifer Friedmann, Jonathan Gilmore, Michael Gordin, Phil Gorski, Patty Gowaty, David Halperin, Brian Hare, Karsten Harries, Verity Harte, Geoff Hill, Dror Hawlena, Rebecca Helm, Geoff Hill, Jack Hitt, Rebecca Irwin, Susan Johnson Currier, Mark Kirkpatrick, Jonathan Kramnick, Susan Lindee, Pauline LeVen, Daniel Lieberman, Kevin McCracken, David McDonald, Erika Milam, Andrew Miranker, Michael Nachman, Barry Nalebuff, Tom Near, Daniel Osorio, Gail Patricelli, Robert B. Payne, Bryan Pfeiffer, Steven Pincus, Steven Pinker, Jeff Podos, Trevor Price, David Prum, Joanna Radin, Bill Rankin, Mark Robbins, Gil Rosenthal, David Rothenberg, Joan Roughgarden, Alexandre Roulin, Jed Rubenfeld, Dustin Rubenstein, Fred Rush, Bret Ryder, Lisa Sanders, Haun Saussy, Francis Sawyer, Sam See, Maria Servedio, Russ Shafer-Landau, Robert Shiller, Bryan Simmons, David Shuker, Bob Shulman, Stephen Stearns, Cassie Stoddard, Cordelia Swann, Gary Tomlinson, Chris Udry, Al Uy, Ralph Vetters, Michael Wade, Günter Wagner, David Watts, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Tom Will, Catherine Wilson, Richard Wrangham, Marlene Zuk, and Kristof Zyskowski. I am sure there are others that I have forgotten!
Much of the research presented in the book was done in collaboration with my students and postdocs. I am very thankful for the creative input, discussions, and hard work of Marina Anciães, Jacob Berv, Kimberly Bostwick, Patricia Brennan, Chris Clark, Teresa Feo, Todd Harvey, Jacob Musser, Vinod Saranathan, Ed Scholes, Sam Snow, Cassie Stoddard, and Kalliope Stournaras.
I am thankful to my editor at Doubleday, Kristine Puopolo, and her assistant, Daniel Meyer, who gave me encouragement, thoughtful insights, and excellent observations all along the way. Beth Rashbaum worked tirelessly on editing several drafts of the entire book, and she helped make the book clearer, more accessible, and easier to read. I am deeply thankful to Beth for her patience, persistence, and insights. Of course, I alone remain responsible for all errors, oversights, and omissions in the work.
I am very grateful to my agents, John Brockman and Katinka Matson, for their experience, advice, and guidance throughout the entire process.
Writing can be a lonely and uncertain process. Early on in the project, I had an e-mail correspondence with the poet Carter Revard about aesthetic evolution in birds, nature, and the arts. In closing, Carter shared with me Robert Frost’s “The Tuft of Flowers,” which concludes with the lines:
“Men work together,” I told him from the heart,
“Whether they work together or apart.”
The image from Frost’s poem—of our many separate lives working in parallel in different ways, in isolation and perhaps even ignorance of each other, toward a shared goal of discovery, beauty, and justice—became an inspiration and encouragement throughout the project. Thus, I am grateful to all those working in parallel for scientific change and a new, more productive relationship between science and culture.