Richard Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, gave the before-dinner remarks in a talk titled “Physics for Future Presidents.” (Photo by Steve Gladfelter/Visual Art Services, Stanford University)

Hoover senior fellow Robert Hall is the president-elect of the American Economic Association.

In “Election 2008: Why America Is So Deeply Divided” Shelby Steele, the Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, noted that differences between liberals and conservatives began in the 1960s with a vacuum of moral authority and a crisis within society, which society does not tolerate well. (Photo by Steve Gladfelter/Visual Art Services, Stanford University)

David Brady, Hoover deputy director and the Davis Family Senior Fellow, and Morris Fiorina, Hoover senior fellow, discussed the results of the presidential election in a presentation titled “The 2008 Election: An Electoral Retrospective and a Policy Prospective.” (Photo by Steve Gladfelter/Visual Art Services, Stanford University)

David Brady, Hoover deputy director and the Davis Family Senior Fellow, and Morris Fiorina, Hoover senior fellow, discussed the results of the presidential election in a presentation titled “The 2008 Election: An Electoral Retrospective and a Policy Prospective.” Photo by Steve Gladfelter/Visual Art Services, Stanford University)

Those in the West must put to rest the view that they must make the world over in their image, said Ken Jowitt, the Pres and Maurine Hotchkis Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, in his presentation “The World Is Not Like Us.” (Photo by Steve Gladfelter/Visual Art Services, Stanford University)

Arthur Brooks, author of Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for Americans­ and How We Can Get More of It, told the audience that his research, and that of many others in the field, points to earned success, not vast amounts of money, as most indicative of a person's overall happiness. (Photo by Steve Gladfelter/Visual Art Services, Stanford University)