Renegade scientist Robert Trivers is lauded as one of our greatest thinkers—despite irking academia with blunt talk and bad manners.

Renegade scientist Robert Trivers is lauded as one of our greatest thinkers—despite irking academia with blunt talk and bad manners.

In “The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life,” Robert Trivers explores how we deceive ourselves in order to deceive others.

Robert Trivers, the Rutgers biologist noted for his public spat with Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, made a Valentine’s Day visit to Cambridge yesterday. But it wasn’t candy ...