It is one of the central arguments of this book that the special feature of human intelligence is that it is collective, not individual – thanks to the invention of exchange and specialisation. The same is true of the ideas in this book. I have done no more in writing it than try to open my mind to the free flow and exchange of ideas of others and hope that those ideas will mate furiously within my own cortex. The writing of the book has been a sort of continuous conversation, therefore, with friends, experts, mentors and strangers, carried on in person, by email, by exchange of papers and references, in person and by telephone. The internet is truly a great gift to authors, providing boundless access to sources of knowledge on which to draw, a virtual library of unlimited size and speed (and of course variable quality).
I am immensely grateful to all those who have allowed me to converse with them in this way and I have met nothing but freely given help and advice from all. I am especially grateful to Jan Witkowski, Gerry Ohrstrom and Julian Morris, who helped me organise a meeting on ‘The Retreat from Reason’ at Cold Spring Harbor to begin to explore my ideas; and then to Terry Anderson and Monika Cheney who two years later arranged a seminar in Napa, California, for me to bounce a first draft of my book off some remarkable people for two days.
Here, in alphabetical order, are some of those whose ideas and thoughts I sampled most fruitfully. Their collective generosity and perspicacity have been astounding. The mistakes, of course, are mine. They include: Bruce Ames, Terry Anderson, June Arunga, Ron Bailey, Nick Barton, Roger Bate, Eric Beinhocker, Alex Bentley, Carl Bergstrom, Roger Bingham, Doug Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, the late Norman Borlaug, Rob Boyd, Kent Bradford, Stewart Brand, Sarah Brosnan, John Browning, Erwin Bulte, Bruce Charlton, Monika Cheney, Patricia Churchland, Greg Clark, John Clippinger, Daniel Cole, Greg Conko, Jack Crawford, the late Michael Crichton, Helena Cronin, Clive Crook, Tony Curzon Price, Richard Dawkins, Tracey Day, Dan Dennett, Hernando de Soto, Frans de Waal, John Dickhaut, Anna Dreber, Susan Dudley, Emma Duncan, Martin Durkin, David Eagleman, Niall Ferguson, Alvaro Fischer, Tim Fitzgerald, David Fletcher, Rob Foley, Richard Gardner, Katya Georgieva, Gordon Getty, Jeanne Giaccia, Urs Glasser, Indur Goklany, Allen Good, Oliver Goodenough, Johnny Grimond, Monica Guenther, Robin Hanson, Joe Henrich, Dominic Hobson, Jack Horner, Sarah Hrdy, Nick Humphrey, Anya Hurlbert, Anula Jayasuriya, Elliot Justin, Anne Kandler, Ximena Katz, Terence Kealey, Eric Kimbrough, Kari Kohn, Meir Kohn, Steve Kuhn, Marta Lahr, Nigel Lawson, Don Leal, Gary Libecap, Brink Lindsey, Robert Litan, Bjørn Lomborg, Marcus Lovell-Smith, Qing Lu, Barnaby Marsh, Richard Maudslay, Sally McBrearty, Kevin McCabe, Bobby McCormick, Ian McEwan, Al McHughen, Warren Meyer, Henry Miller, Alberto Mingardi, Graeme Mitchison, Julian Morris, Oliver Morton, Richard Moxon, Daniel Nettle, Johann Norberg, Jesse Norman, Haim Ofek, Gerry Ohrstrom, Kendra Okonski, Svante Paabo, Mark Pagel, Richard Peto, Ryan Phelan, Steven Pinker, Kenneth Pomeranz, David Porter, Virginia Postrel, C.S. Prakash, Chris Pywell, Sarah Randolph, Trey Ratcliff, Paul Reiter, Eric Rey, Pete Richerson, Luke Ridley, Russell Roberts, Paul Romer, David Sands, Rashid Shaikh, Stephen Shennan, Michael Shermer, Lee Silver, Dane Stangler, James Steele, Chris Stringer, Ashley Summerfield, Ray Tallis, Dick Taverne, Janice Taverne, John Tooby, Nigel Vinson, Nicholas Wade, Ian Wallace, Jim Watson, Troy Wear, Franz Weissing, David Wengrow, Tim White, David Willetts, Bart Wilson, Jan Witkowski, Richard Wrangham, Bob Wright and last, but certainly not least, Paul Zak, who employed me as white-coated lab assistant for a day.
My agent, Felicity Bryan, is, as ever, a godmother of this book – encouraging and reassuring at all the right moments. She and Peter Ginsberg have been champions of the project throughout, as have my editors Terry Karten, Mitzi Angel and Louise Haines and other supportive friends at 4th Estate and HarperCollins, especially Elizabeth Woabank. Huge thanks too to Kendra Okonski for invaluable help in making rationaloptimist.com a reality, and to Luke Ridley for help with research. Thanks also to Roger Harmar, Sarah Hyndman and MacGuru Ltd for the charts at the start of each chapter.
My greatest debt is to my family, not least for helping me to find the space and time to write. Anya’s inspiration, insight and support are immeasurably valuable. It has been a great joy to have for the first time the unflinchingly sharp mind of my son to discuss ideas with, and check facts, as I write. He helped prepare most of the charts. And my daughter led me to a bridge in Paris one evening, to listen to Dick Miller and his group singing ‘What a Wonderful World’.