Acknowledgements

Writing this book in such a short span of time is perhaps the most challenging thing I have ever done – I almost didn’t manage it. Without any of the people I am about to name, I wouldn’t have. I am so profoundly grateful to all of you.

I am humbled to have been selected by the Nine Dots Prize board and given the opportunity to write this book. I was floored to receive the call last May that I had won the prize, and the shock has still not quite worn off. Since I was very young, I have dreamt of holding a book with my name on it in my hands, and in a few months I’ll get to do just that. Thank you for seeing something in my writing, and thank you to the Kadas Prize Foundation for its generous financial support.

I am especially grateful to Jane Tinkler at Nine Dots for the boundless kindness and patience she has offered me over the course of this project. I know I put her through a great deal, but she never showed it; she was unfailingly compassionate and always willing to work with me and find a way to make this book happen. The wonderful team at Cambridge University Press, and Sharon McCann in particular, were also extraordinarily patient with me throughout this process – thank you so much for all the work you have done.

This book depended on hours of interviews with scientists and researchers who generously offered their time and expertise. These conversations were by far my favorite part of the book-writing process, and they advanced and deepened my thinking far beyond the nugget of an idea that was present in my original essay. In particular, I’m grateful to Lisa Messeri and Ev Fedorenko, whom I do not quote directly in these pages but whose insights were nevertheless invaluable for my writing.

I was fortunate to connect with Hannah Seo, my fantastic copy-editor, as I was writing this book, and she did a fabulous job of verifying everything from spelling to scientific reasoning – and bearing with my ever-shifting timelines. If any errors remain, they are undoubtedly attributable to some ill-advised edits on my part. I also received great advice from Rachel Gross and Sarah Scoles at a book retreat put on by the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications and the UCSC Science Communication Program – thank you so much to them and to the retreat organizers.

I started working on this book long before that retreat, and long before I even applied for the Nine Dots Prize. It traces back to my first quarter of graduate school, when my doctoral advisor, Russell Poldrack, proposed that I study how the concepts of prediction and explanation operate in human neuroscience. That first project sparked an abiding obsession with scientific understanding, which Russ, together with Helen Longino and Rosa Cao, nurtured toward academic rigor. Anything in this book that is clear, careful, and well reasoned is entirely to their credit.

My coworkers and supervisors at MIT Technology Review have been profoundly supportive of this project, even when it took me away from my work. Thank you so much to Mary Beth Griggs, Mat Honan, Niall Firth, Will Douglas Heaven, and all of my other extraordinary colleagues. I’m also fortunate to have had the support of all the fantastic friends who talked through ideas with me, offered me words of encouragement, or even just spent time with me over the past year, including (but certainly not limited to!) Neha Mehrotra, Rebecca Zhu, Brody Foy, Isaac Fellman, Waverly March, Guy Wilson, Bonnie Wong, Kara Lessin, Phoebus Cotsapas, Declan Thompson, Pauline Fleau, and Daniel Amdemichael.

Mat, Phoebus, and Brody all offered to review chapters for me, and though I did not end up having time to take them up on those offers, they meant a great deal to me. And I’m particularly indebted to Will, who approached me when I was at a low point in the writing process and expressed so much enthusiasm for the book that I knew I needed to push through.

Finally, and most importantly, I owe everything to my family. I could not possibly have completed this book without the unconditional love and support of my parents and sister, who carried me through some very tough moments over the past year. I’m a bit less terrified of falling on my face knowing that they will be there to catch me. And this book – not to mention everything else I’ve done over the past several years – would have been impossible without Verity Walsh. When I doubt myself, as I continually do, it is her faith in me that pushes me to try to achieve the things I’m convinced I’m incapable of. Sometimes, I even prove her right.