I could not have written a book covering such a diverse range of topics without a great deal of help from many fellow scientists. The following experts read passages, entire chapters or the whole book for me and offered friendly advice and mildly-worded corrections: Margaret Collinson, Lewis Dartnell, Roberto Donovaro, Richard Ghail, Jonti Horner, Jim Kasting, Andrew Liddle, Euan Nisbet, Hiranya Peiris, Toby Tyrrell and Kathy Whaler. In addition, my colleague Peter Burgess read each chapter as I completed it, suggested many areas for improvement and then read the chapters again! This would have been a very different, and far less accurate, book without his input and without the help of all these colleagues. Any remaining factual errors are, of course, my own responsibility. I should also emphasise that the help I received does not in any way imply that these colleagues endorse what I have said in these pages. In fact, several of them strongly disagree with my views, but that just emphasises how wonderfully generous they have been with their time and advice. It’s a pleasure to acknowledge, as well, the helpful encouragement and comments from my ‘intelligent lay-people’, my wife Joanne Waltham and my uncle Roger Waltham.
I must add how grateful I am for the unwavering support, encouragement and practical advice from my agent, Sally Holloway, over the several years that it took for this project to come to fruition. Finally, the staff at the publishing companies (Icon Books and Basic Books) were absolutely brilliant – thank you for the diplomatically expressed guidance on which parts needed a bit more work.