What is Tom saying to Maureen?

Ian Hacking, who holds a chair in the philosophy and history of scientific concepts at the Collège de France in Paris, has written an excellent review for the London Review of Books of two new books:
The Science and Fiction of Autism, by Laura Schreibman and
Send in the Idiots: How We Grew to Understand the World, by Kamran Nazeer.
This is much more than a book review. I hope that you will take a moment to read this piece. It is a worthy read in itself.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.
Ecclesiastes 7:8