State and National News

"Most animals learn by trial and error. There's just one problem: error." — Dan Gilbert

Our amazing brain, with all of its harmonious functions, also performs any number of peculiar actions, which we might find unexpected and counterintuitive. What tricks do our minds play when we think it's okay to lie, cheat, or steal? How in control are we of our own decisions? And why do our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy?

Eric Trager is the Ira Weiner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Valerie M. Hudson is professor and George H.W. Bush chair in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

In the academic field of security studies, realpolitik dominates. Those who adhere to this worldview are committed to accepting empirical evidence when it is placed before their eyes, to see the world as it "really" is and not as it ideally should be. As Walter Lippmann wrote, "We must not substitute for the world as it is an imaginary world."

Anne-Elisabeth Moutet is a regular columnist for the London Telegraph and a commentator for the BBC.

Agnès Catherine Poirier is a French journalist and writer based in London.