Brain Rules

IN A LIST OF just about anything, items at the beginning and end are the easiest for the brain to retrieve. It’s called Serial Position Effect, and I mention it because I am about to list some of the many people who helped bring this project to fruition. There obviously will be a first person and a last person and lots of people in between. This is not because I see these folks in a hierarchy of values; it is simply because written languages are necessarily, cursedly linear. Please pay attention, dear reader, to the folks in the middle as well as to those at the end points. As I have often mentioned to graduate students, there is great value in the middle of most U-shaped curves.

First, I thank my publisher at Pear Press, Mark Pearson, the guiding hand of this project and easily the wisest, oldest young man with whom I have ever had the joy to work. It was a pleasure to work with editor Tracy Cutchlow, who with patience, laughter, and extraordinary thoughtfulness, taught me how to write.

I am grateful to friends on this journey with me: Lee Huntsman, for hours of patient listening and friendship for almost 20 years. Dennis Weibling, for believing in me and giving me such freedom to sow seeds. Paul Lange, whose curiosity and insights are still so vibrant after all these years (not bad for a “plumber”!). Bruce Hosford, for deep friendship, one of the most can-do people I have ever met.

Thanks to Paul Yager, and my friends in the department of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine, for giving me opportunity. I’m also grateful to my colleagues at Seattle Pacific University: Frank Kline, Rick Eigenbrod, and Bill Rowley, for a spirit of adventure and for tolerance. Don Nielsen, who knew without a doubt that education really was about brain development. Julia Calhoun, who reigns as the premier example of emotional greatness. Alden Jones, amazing as you are, without whom none of my professional life would work.

And my deepest thanks to my beloved wife Kari, who continually reminds me that love is the thing that makes you smile, even when you are tired. You, dear, are one in a million.