This has since been removed, with some aspects incorporated into chapter 1, but it does give a sense of what to expect, and a sense of the tone and stakes.
In the following pages, you will encounter murder, mystery, ethical dilemmas, and the possible end of humanity as we know it. The story is part whodunnit, part confession, and part moral philosophy. I justify the uncommon structure because we need to rethink how we do everything anyway. But really, it’s because I’ve spent too much time dithering over how to present it – a memoir, a novel, textbook, a guide to how we can flourish and survive? It’s a story and how much is true would entail a philosophical rumination on the nature of truth. Suffice to say it will be full on, state-of-the-art ‘education-entertainment’.
Below is the dedication at the start of the book
There is no better company than a bunch of academics arguing down the pub. Whatever the subject, they will discourse with passion, pedantry, rigour and ferocious attention to evidence. No statement will go unchallenged. You may wax lyrical about your new face cream, and next time you meet they will have tried it on one side of their face, not the other, and challenge you to tell the difference. Or it will be questioned why on a drug information leaflet, precise statistics are given on the chances of you suffering from specific side effects but no corresponding data on the probabilities of benefit. Or a thought-provoking proposition that if we’d have discovered the peaceful bonobo apes before the more macho chimpanzees, we’d have gone on to become a matriarchal society. Unconstrained by politics or commerce, they will debate freely the extent to which economic growth is compatible with a finite planet. Some academics are co-opted by industry and induced with flattery and first-class flights to dance to their tune. But most are not, and never have they been so necessary. This book is dedicated to them and to the glorious planet Earth upon whom the whole merry-go-round depends.
