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Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness
A daring and intimate exploration of how genetics complicates our ideas about blame, punishment, and moral responsibility, from acclaimed psychologist and author of The Genetic Lottery Kathryn Paige Harden.
“An extraordinary book, the very best of science writing, because it is about not just science—it is memoir, history, bleeding-edge genetics, and a completely original take on original sin.”—Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
As one of the world’s leading scientists examining how our DNA shapes differences in temperament, temptation, and behavior, Kathryn Paige Harden has seen firsthand how we continue to struggle—in public and in our most private relationships—with the ancient tensions between nature and nurture, freedom and constraint, the desire to punish and the longing to forgive.
In Original Sin, she weaves together insights from her own experience as a daughter, mother, wife, and scientist with cutting-edge research in genetics and psychology to grapple with some of the most important questions in modern How do we take responsibility for the people we become, knowing how we are shaped by both biology and experience? How should we respond when people hurt each other—or themselves? And has science made guilt obsolete?
Navigating the psychological and biological terrain of addiction, antisocial behavior, and violence, Harden confronts the disorienting ways science unsettles our understanding of wrongdoing and choice. In doing so, she asks us not to absolve but to reckon differently with notions of fairness and blame. A revelatory inquiry into the uneasy space where human behavior meets inherited biology, Original Sin challenges us to imagine a more humane vision of accountability—for ourselves and for one another.
“An extraordinary book, the very best of science writing, because it is about not just science—it is memoir, history, bleeding-edge genetics, and a completely original take on original sin.”—Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
As one of the world’s leading scientists examining how our DNA shapes differences in temperament, temptation, and behavior, Kathryn Paige Harden has seen firsthand how we continue to struggle—in public and in our most private relationships—with the ancient tensions between nature and nurture, freedom and constraint, the desire to punish and the longing to forgive.
In Original Sin, she weaves together insights from her own experience as a daughter, mother, wife, and scientist with cutting-edge research in genetics and psychology to grapple with some of the most important questions in modern How do we take responsibility for the people we become, knowing how we are shaped by both biology and experience? How should we respond when people hurt each other—or themselves? And has science made guilt obsolete?
Navigating the psychological and biological terrain of addiction, antisocial behavior, and violence, Harden confronts the disorienting ways science unsettles our understanding of wrongdoing and choice. In doing so, she asks us not to absolve but to reckon differently with notions of fairness and blame. A revelatory inquiry into the uneasy space where human behavior meets inherited biology, Original Sin challenges us to imagine a more humane vision of accountability—for ourselves and for one another.
308 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 3, 2026
48 people are currently reading
2678 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Paige Harden
2 books98 followersKathryn Paige Harden is a tenured professor in the Department of Psychology at University of Texas Austin, where she leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab and co-directs the Texas Twin Project.
She is the author of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality (Princeton). Dr. Harden received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia and completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School before moving to Austin in 2009. She has published over 100 scientific articles on genetic influences on complex human behavior, including child cognitive development, academic achievement, risk-taking, mental health, sexual activity, and childbearing. Her research has been featured in popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Huffington Post.
In 2017, she was honored with a prestigious national award from the American Psychological Association for her distinguished scientific contributions to the study of genetics and human individual differences. In addition to research, Dr. Harden teaches Introduction to Psychology in a synchronous massive online class format.
She is the author of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality (Princeton). Dr. Harden received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia and completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School before moving to Austin in 2009. She has published over 100 scientific articles on genetic influences on complex human behavior, including child cognitive development, academic achievement, risk-taking, mental health, sexual activity, and childbearing. Her research has been featured in popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Huffington Post.
In 2017, she was honored with a prestigious national award from the American Psychological Association for her distinguished scientific contributions to the study of genetics and human individual differences. In addition to research, Dr. Harden teaches Introduction to Psychology in a synchronous massive online class format.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 3, 2026
Original Sin integrates personal memoir with scientific research, philosophical inquiry, and broader cultural critique. It is a discursive follow-up to Harden's 2021 book, The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality, asking why people do harm to themselves and others and what should be done about it. Harden's commitments to egalitarianism remains but her stridency about the sociopolitical import of her behavioral genetics research has subsided some.
The book is more of an essay collection than a coherent whole, but it's a compelling collection that will engage readers of all backgrounds on deep human questions concerning our natures, fairness, and forgiveness. Harden is remarkably candid about her personal life, which will probably be of most interest to those who pick up the book, but I really appreciated when Harden discussed her research and other genetic inputs on behavior. For instance, the details on Brunner syndrome were deeply appreciated, especially because it is an example that many left-of-center geneticists have played down or overlooked. The book can be construed as a very strong re-assertion of the first law of behavioral genetics, the idea that all human traits vary in populations because of variation in genomes. She extends this acceptance of genetic effects to how these shape and interact with environments. They aren't independent of each other.
Harden's research program is most interested in risk-taking phenotypes and related behavioral patterns like addiction, antisocial conduct, and violence. These are sensitive subjects to many, but Harden maintains her candidness on these subjects as well despite staking out a clear normative position to left of most people. She then traces how our normative processes for regulating these behaviors are perhaps founded on ideas that aren't true and even when they are, things may still be unfair and unjust, but it is unclear how we can remedy these issues or even if these questions can or should be resolved. She's is comfortable with this dissonance and committed to continual reflection and revision. Personally, I'm for pragmatic, empirical solutions to these questions as it is clear people respond to incentives and sometime understanding material causes clearly enables effective remediation.
All in all, Original Sin is a provocative, interdisciplinary exploration of human behavior that pushes readers to reconsider their reflexive ideas about blame and moral responsibility by integrating genetics, psychology, and lived experience. It invites a more nuanced and compassionate framework for understanding why people behave as they do and how we might respond more justly.
*I'd like to than Netgalley and the published for an advanced reader copy in return for an honest review.
The book is more of an essay collection than a coherent whole, but it's a compelling collection that will engage readers of all backgrounds on deep human questions concerning our natures, fairness, and forgiveness. Harden is remarkably candid about her personal life, which will probably be of most interest to those who pick up the book, but I really appreciated when Harden discussed her research and other genetic inputs on behavior. For instance, the details on Brunner syndrome were deeply appreciated, especially because it is an example that many left-of-center geneticists have played down or overlooked. The book can be construed as a very strong re-assertion of the first law of behavioral genetics, the idea that all human traits vary in populations because of variation in genomes. She extends this acceptance of genetic effects to how these shape and interact with environments. They aren't independent of each other.
Harden's research program is most interested in risk-taking phenotypes and related behavioral patterns like addiction, antisocial conduct, and violence. These are sensitive subjects to many, but Harden maintains her candidness on these subjects as well despite staking out a clear normative position to left of most people. She then traces how our normative processes for regulating these behaviors are perhaps founded on ideas that aren't true and even when they are, things may still be unfair and unjust, but it is unclear how we can remedy these issues or even if these questions can or should be resolved. She's is comfortable with this dissonance and committed to continual reflection and revision. Personally, I'm for pragmatic, empirical solutions to these questions as it is clear people respond to incentives and sometime understanding material causes clearly enables effective remediation.
All in all, Original Sin is a provocative, interdisciplinary exploration of human behavior that pushes readers to reconsider their reflexive ideas about blame and moral responsibility by integrating genetics, psychology, and lived experience. It invites a more nuanced and compassionate framework for understanding why people behave as they do and how we might respond more justly.
*I'd like to than Netgalley and the published for an advanced reader copy in return for an honest review.
February 7, 2026
“I have spent much of my adult life studying how our genes cause us to behave in ways that are praised or punished, and I am still trying to make sense of what this work means for how we should treat each other.
In this book, I think through that question. As you will see, I offer few definitive answers. I will not neatly resolve enduring mysteries about the human condition in a single book.”
Dr. Harden gets extra credit for her honesty in those four sentences. Authors with THE answers? extra demerits. I received a digital Advance Reader’s Copy of an uncorrected ebook of this from the publisher, Penguin Random House, through NetGalley. In it, Dr. Harden talks about her research, as well as from other scientists, without being overly academic on a complicated scientific subject. She tempers it with personal stories. “Watching him [her then boyfriend, now second husband] earn their [her children from her first marriage] trust, I realize how close you can get to a wild animal simply by being very still.
But stillness is taxing. Our lives have become a hot and dreary cycle of Sisyphean sameness. We want to escape, not just our routines but ourselves.
We want life to be different, and life cannot be different. Trump is still president; the virus still spreads.“
That was during the pandemic, and now he's back. And I like her writing. She also weaves in quotes and observations from literature, poetry, philosophy, other sciences, and in case the title didn’t give it away, religion. While the originally Catholic passed down to its offshoots assertion of “original sin” is dogma [and as with all of the dogma, keyed on control - my words, not hers], we learn that there is strong evidence of genetic influence on violent and/o antisocial behaviors, pulling the nature vs nurture debate back into discussion. (It can be both - and often, both exacerbate the behaviors.) There is still free will, but despite knowing something shouldn’t be done, some still do it. And that is something she studies. And you will learn about here. Lots to think about. Highly recommended.
I was a little disappointed that Dr. Harden used unkeyed endnotes. I dislike stumbling across them after I’ve finished*, with only a label connection to what I read. I do not always want to go back after I’m done., but I often do want to follow a note, find the cited work, mark for further reading (or I have been know to go read that book/paper and then come back to the original book.) I understand the purpose of not interrupting a flow (but really, do callouts actually interrupt?), but I feel it does a disservice to anyone actually thinking about what the author is writing. *TBF Because I don’t like finding out afterwards, I turn to the notes first to see if I’ll be frustrated or not.
A few curated notes:
[This brought back a memory:]
“In this book, I invite you to circumnavigate with me. I want to show you how if you travel east far enough you end up west.”
{In 1979, my physics advisor/professor was Dr. V. V. Raman. In response to something I said along the lines of physics being an exact science and not fuzzy like biology, and had actual use unlike philosophy. He gently gave the naive 18 year old me something to think about, drawing a line and making on it the traditional views of hard sciences on one end (physics, then chemistry), moving to less exact (biology, psychology) to broader , less specific studies (sociology, philosophy). That young me agreed enthusiastically until he wrapped the philosophy end around to the physics and said it’s not a line, but a circle. Obviously, that made enough of an impression on me to stick with me all these decades.}
[On religion, this reflection/insight caught my attention:]
“At least, I don't think I believe in God anymore. I'm a scientist. But being raised Evangelical is like getting chicken pox as a child: You might recover, but you are never free. The virus will live in your nerves until you die.”
[on unconscious brains dictating actions before conscious brains think they are making them happen]
“One of the reasons the famous finger-moving study is contested is because the ‘decision’ that participants were asked to make was so trifling. They were asked to do an inconsequential act for no reason at all. A later study used a similar experimental setup, but people's decision to move was, on some trials, more consequential, determining which charity of two would get a one thousand dollar donation. In consequential decisions, brain activity in the motor planning area was no longer apparent prior to people's conscious awareness of the intention to act. This newer result can be interpreted as a reassurance: For big decisions, at least, we need not worry that we are ‘being done,’ rather than doing. This study suggests that, for important decisions, the imperious ‘I’ is still firmly in charge.”
{I have seen/read enough in serious studies and cringey pop science teasers on the deep reptile brain causing actions before the prefrontal cortex decides to do said actions. This was refreshing.}
[parenting wisdom]
“More recently, my colleague Danielle Dick, also a behavior geneticist, wrote a parenting book encouraging parents to avoid blaming themselves and to avoid blaming their children by pointing at the role genetics plays in child development. ‘Just because your child is throwing huge fits doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong,’ she writes. ‘It just means your child inherited a temperament toward big feelings, feelings they are still learning to manage.’"
{This is something that should be mandatory reading in the parenting manuals…that don’t come with the children}
[on sympathy and empathy]
“What if I had had your childhood?" is a question that invites my sympathy for your behavior. But "What if I had had your genome?" is a question that makes sympathy difficult, maybe impossible, because the self who would be doing the sympathizing is threatened with dissolution.
Instead of sympathy, answering such a question requires empathy-feeling as another, instead of feeling with another.”
{I admit that I sometimes need something intuitively obvious to the most casual observer as that explained in terms that make sense to me.}
[of interest only to me, another memory triggered]
“My office at the University of Virginia was a janitorial closet. Gilmer Hall had none of the Rotunda's elegance, symmetry, or proportion. It was a dim warren of windowless rooms and narrow corridors, clad in concrete. I don't know which grad student first thought to cram a small desk into a corner closet containing buckets and mops, but I'm sure they were drawn to its tiny, improbable window, a rarity in a department that seemed to consider natural light unnecessary for mood and productivity.”
{I was in the Navy and one time, two Captains (Colonels, for reference to other services) told me a story about how one of them had a tiny office in the Pentagon that had a six inch by eighteen inch window that he hated every day because it looked out at a brick wall. One day, the other came in excitedly talking about something, paused, and blurted out, “Oh my god! You have a window!” The first told me that changed his perspective and he stopped hating “that damned window.”}
[on the adverse sociological effects of everyone thinking the same]
“A crimeless society, in [Émile] Durkheim's view, would happen only if everyone were exactly alike in what they value as good and bad and in how they live out their values. Such uniformity was impossible, in Durkheim's view, given that people differed in their social and physical environments and their ‘hereditary antecedents.’ Deviation from any norm is inevitable.
But even if such uniformity were possible, Durkheim argued that it would be undesirable, because without diversity, without difference, systems of morality could never progress. A social system that succeeded in stamping out all variety in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behavior would petrify. A monoculture without the possibility of mutation is an evolutionary dead end; deviation is the grist for evolution.”
In this book, I think through that question. As you will see, I offer few definitive answers. I will not neatly resolve enduring mysteries about the human condition in a single book.”
Dr. Harden gets extra credit for her honesty in those four sentences. Authors with THE answers? extra demerits. I received a digital Advance Reader’s Copy of an uncorrected ebook of this from the publisher, Penguin Random House, through NetGalley. In it, Dr. Harden talks about her research, as well as from other scientists, without being overly academic on a complicated scientific subject. She tempers it with personal stories. “Watching him [her then boyfriend, now second husband] earn their [her children from her first marriage] trust, I realize how close you can get to a wild animal simply by being very still.
But stillness is taxing. Our lives have become a hot and dreary cycle of Sisyphean sameness. We want to escape, not just our routines but ourselves.
We want life to be different, and life cannot be different. Trump is still president; the virus still spreads.“
That was during the pandemic, and now he's back. And I like her writing. She also weaves in quotes and observations from literature, poetry, philosophy, other sciences, and in case the title didn’t give it away, religion. While the originally Catholic passed down to its offshoots assertion of “original sin” is dogma [and as with all of the dogma, keyed on control - my words, not hers], we learn that there is strong evidence of genetic influence on violent and/o antisocial behaviors, pulling the nature vs nurture debate back into discussion. (It can be both - and often, both exacerbate the behaviors.) There is still free will, but despite knowing something shouldn’t be done, some still do it. And that is something she studies. And you will learn about here. Lots to think about. Highly recommended.
I was a little disappointed that Dr. Harden used unkeyed endnotes. I dislike stumbling across them after I’ve finished*, with only a label connection to what I read. I do not always want to go back after I’m done., but I often do want to follow a note, find the cited work, mark for further reading (or I have been know to go read that book/paper and then come back to the original book.) I understand the purpose of not interrupting a flow (but really, do callouts actually interrupt?), but I feel it does a disservice to anyone actually thinking about what the author is writing. *TBF Because I don’t like finding out afterwards, I turn to the notes first to see if I’ll be frustrated or not.
A few curated notes:
[This brought back a memory:]
“In this book, I invite you to circumnavigate with me. I want to show you how if you travel east far enough you end up west.”
{In 1979, my physics advisor/professor was Dr. V. V. Raman. In response to something I said along the lines of physics being an exact science and not fuzzy like biology, and had actual use unlike philosophy. He gently gave the naive 18 year old me something to think about, drawing a line and making on it the traditional views of hard sciences on one end (physics, then chemistry), moving to less exact (biology, psychology) to broader , less specific studies (sociology, philosophy). That young me agreed enthusiastically until he wrapped the philosophy end around to the physics and said it’s not a line, but a circle. Obviously, that made enough of an impression on me to stick with me all these decades.}
[On religion, this reflection/insight caught my attention:]
“At least, I don't think I believe in God anymore. I'm a scientist. But being raised Evangelical is like getting chicken pox as a child: You might recover, but you are never free. The virus will live in your nerves until you die.”
[on unconscious brains dictating actions before conscious brains think they are making them happen]
“One of the reasons the famous finger-moving study is contested is because the ‘decision’ that participants were asked to make was so trifling. They were asked to do an inconsequential act for no reason at all. A later study used a similar experimental setup, but people's decision to move was, on some trials, more consequential, determining which charity of two would get a one thousand dollar donation. In consequential decisions, brain activity in the motor planning area was no longer apparent prior to people's conscious awareness of the intention to act. This newer result can be interpreted as a reassurance: For big decisions, at least, we need not worry that we are ‘being done,’ rather than doing. This study suggests that, for important decisions, the imperious ‘I’ is still firmly in charge.”
{I have seen/read enough in serious studies and cringey pop science teasers on the deep reptile brain causing actions before the prefrontal cortex decides to do said actions. This was refreshing.}
[parenting wisdom]
“More recently, my colleague Danielle Dick, also a behavior geneticist, wrote a parenting book encouraging parents to avoid blaming themselves and to avoid blaming their children by pointing at the role genetics plays in child development. ‘Just because your child is throwing huge fits doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong,’ she writes. ‘It just means your child inherited a temperament toward big feelings, feelings they are still learning to manage.’"
{This is something that should be mandatory reading in the parenting manuals…that don’t come with the children}
[on sympathy and empathy]
“What if I had had your childhood?" is a question that invites my sympathy for your behavior. But "What if I had had your genome?" is a question that makes sympathy difficult, maybe impossible, because the self who would be doing the sympathizing is threatened with dissolution.
Instead of sympathy, answering such a question requires empathy-feeling as another, instead of feeling with another.”
{I admit that I sometimes need something intuitively obvious to the most casual observer as that explained in terms that make sense to me.}
[of interest only to me, another memory triggered]
“My office at the University of Virginia was a janitorial closet. Gilmer Hall had none of the Rotunda's elegance, symmetry, or proportion. It was a dim warren of windowless rooms and narrow corridors, clad in concrete. I don't know which grad student first thought to cram a small desk into a corner closet containing buckets and mops, but I'm sure they were drawn to its tiny, improbable window, a rarity in a department that seemed to consider natural light unnecessary for mood and productivity.”
{I was in the Navy and one time, two Captains (Colonels, for reference to other services) told me a story about how one of them had a tiny office in the Pentagon that had a six inch by eighteen inch window that he hated every day because it looked out at a brick wall. One day, the other came in excitedly talking about something, paused, and blurted out, “Oh my god! You have a window!” The first told me that changed his perspective and he stopped hating “that damned window.”}
[on the adverse sociological effects of everyone thinking the same]
“A crimeless society, in [Émile] Durkheim's view, would happen only if everyone were exactly alike in what they value as good and bad and in how they live out their values. Such uniformity was impossible, in Durkheim's view, given that people differed in their social and physical environments and their ‘hereditary antecedents.’ Deviation from any norm is inevitable.
But even if such uniformity were possible, Durkheim argued that it would be undesirable, because without diversity, without difference, systems of morality could never progress. A social system that succeeded in stamping out all variety in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behavior would petrify. A monoculture without the possibility of mutation is an evolutionary dead end; deviation is the grist for evolution.”
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Growing up in a family of scientists, I have often thought about the interplay of nature versus nurture - is our character and life path set at birth? How much of an impact does our environment and upbringing have? And, perhaps most important of all, how much direction do we each have in the type of person we ultimately become and the choices we make? In "Original Sin", behavioral geneticist and University of Texas at Austin professor Kathryn Paige Harden tackles these weighty questions (and many more!) in an truly unique work that combines her own personal experiences, her academic research, scientific studies and conclusions, and individual case studies.
While I struggled with the structure of this work at the beginning, "Original Sin" is loosely organized by different broad topics; in "Luck", she questions the randomness of each individual's life, including the family, time period, and locations that we're born into; in "Animal", she examines the underlying biological drives and urges that are instilled into us from birth; in "Retribution", she explores topics of justice, punishment, and remorse and how they factor into blame and guilt. Each section merges her own experiences as a child and mother with a number of secondary and tertiary sources; some, like case studies on twins, groups, and individuals were expected, but I was also surprised to see her draw on television and current media, poetry (Louise Gluck happens to be one of my favorite poets), Greek mythology, and the Bible - a deceptively broad and encompassing examination that I didn't expect in this type of work.
Perhaps what's most frustrating (yet also reassuring) is that there are no definitive answers in here - just as there are billions of people in the world, there are billions of potential factors and different ways of examining the how's and why's of what drives people to act and behave as they do. What she did underpin, however, was the growing evidence of how much genetics and biology explain so much of our character and our lives - not just in physical attributes like height, weight, and physical fitness, but also attributes like depression, mood, anger/irritability; work ethic and dutifulness; extroversion; and risk for alcohol and drug addiction. Especially when that propensity is tied to the type of households children are born into and the upbringing they are likely to have, makes it even more difficult to parse out what has an effect and to what extent. However, what everyone can take away from this is more understanding of how weighty of a decision it is to give birth to and raise a child, and just how difficult (miraculous?) it is for a child to escape the heredity and environment that they are born into.
Very much a recommended read when "Original Sin" is published in March 2026!
While I struggled with the structure of this work at the beginning, "Original Sin" is loosely organized by different broad topics; in "Luck", she questions the randomness of each individual's life, including the family, time period, and locations that we're born into; in "Animal", she examines the underlying biological drives and urges that are instilled into us from birth; in "Retribution", she explores topics of justice, punishment, and remorse and how they factor into blame and guilt. Each section merges her own experiences as a child and mother with a number of secondary and tertiary sources; some, like case studies on twins, groups, and individuals were expected, but I was also surprised to see her draw on television and current media, poetry (Louise Gluck happens to be one of my favorite poets), Greek mythology, and the Bible - a deceptively broad and encompassing examination that I didn't expect in this type of work.
Perhaps what's most frustrating (yet also reassuring) is that there are no definitive answers in here - just as there are billions of people in the world, there are billions of potential factors and different ways of examining the how's and why's of what drives people to act and behave as they do. What she did underpin, however, was the growing evidence of how much genetics and biology explain so much of our character and our lives - not just in physical attributes like height, weight, and physical fitness, but also attributes like depression, mood, anger/irritability; work ethic and dutifulness; extroversion; and risk for alcohol and drug addiction. Especially when that propensity is tied to the type of households children are born into and the upbringing they are likely to have, makes it even more difficult to parse out what has an effect and to what extent. However, what everyone can take away from this is more understanding of how weighty of a decision it is to give birth to and raise a child, and just how difficult (miraculous?) it is for a child to escape the heredity and environment that they are born into.
Very much a recommended read when "Original Sin" is published in March 2026!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
We rarely change our values. One reason we resist changing our values is that we might feel that if we change our values, we're admitting that we've been wrong all along. And most people loathe admitting they're wrong.
That's why few people change their religion or political affiliation.
Even if deep down inside we know we're wrong, we'd rather practice cognitive dissonance than
In the last few years, I've questioned these values that I held throughout my life:
We have free will
We control our fate
We must take personal responsibility for our condition & actions
We have the power to change ourselves & our lives
I loved believing this because it's an empowering and hopeful message.
However, just because it sounds good doesn't mean it's correct.
I brought up the issue in my podcast with Sym about free will.
Kathryn Paige Harden's 2026 book, Original Sin, adds fuel to the fiery idea that humans are more like robots than creatures who control their fate. She asserts our brains are meatcomputers. Her book convinced me that she's right.
If she's right, the implications are profound:
Should we forgive criminals more easily than we do?
Must we give preferences to people born with ADHD?
Do we stop blaming people for being obese?
Buy the book to dive deeply into this important topic.
Verdict: 9 out of 10 stars!
Sometimes I wish the prose flowed more smoothly, but the powerful ideas make this an outstanding book that everyone should read. It's humbling and profound.
That's why few people change their religion or political affiliation.
Even if deep down inside we know we're wrong, we'd rather practice cognitive dissonance than
In the last few years, I've questioned these values that I held throughout my life:
We have free will
We control our fate
We must take personal responsibility for our condition & actions
We have the power to change ourselves & our lives
I loved believing this because it's an empowering and hopeful message.
However, just because it sounds good doesn't mean it's correct.
I brought up the issue in my podcast with Sym about free will.
Kathryn Paige Harden's 2026 book, Original Sin, adds fuel to the fiery idea that humans are more like robots than creatures who control their fate. She asserts our brains are meatcomputers. Her book convinced me that she's right.
If she's right, the implications are profound:
Should we forgive criminals more easily than we do?
Must we give preferences to people born with ADHD?
Do we stop blaming people for being obese?
Buy the book to dive deeply into this important topic.
Verdict: 9 out of 10 stars!
Sometimes I wish the prose flowed more smoothly, but the powerful ideas make this an outstanding book that everyone should read. It's humbling and profound.
March 21, 2026
Original Sin, written by American Psycologist Kathryn Paige Harden, and combines memoir with look at the Christian concept of original sin, genetics, and whether the usual answer, nature versus nurture, to the question of human behaviour is the right one. She questions if, indeed, genes can have an effect on behaviours such as addiction, antisocial behaviour, and a tendency towards violence, then, should someone who is genetically predisposed to these behaviours be blamed or punished for them and, if so, in what form.
She uses examples of people and, in one case, a family who have committed heinous crimes and how the law has responded to the idea that their behaviour can be the result of their genes. She also looks at how much, if at all, upbringing can effect the outcome for good or bad. And along the way, she tells us about her own life and family.
Original Sin is a fascinating look at questions of how much of human behaviour is part of our genetic makeup as opposed to outside forces like upbringing or environment. In the end, Harden doesn’t give any definitive answers to these issues but, rather, gives the reader much to think about.
I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Random House in exchange for an honest review
She uses examples of people and, in one case, a family who have committed heinous crimes and how the law has responded to the idea that their behaviour can be the result of their genes. She also looks at how much, if at all, upbringing can effect the outcome for good or bad. And along the way, she tells us about her own life and family.
Original Sin is a fascinating look at questions of how much of human behaviour is part of our genetic makeup as opposed to outside forces like upbringing or environment. In the end, Harden doesn’t give any definitive answers to these issues but, rather, gives the reader much to think about.
I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Random House in exchange for an honest review
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I loved this book! And I've never read anything like it. Paige Harden is the top scientist in her field, featured on Huberman Lab and other outlets, and she applies that rigorous lens--combined with a compassionate heart and breathtakingly beautiful prose--to analyze one of the biggest questions in human culture, which is how and when we should blame or judge others or ourselves for moral or ethical failures. She brings a fresh perspective rooted in the new genetic science of polygenic scores; this new science, based on data from millions of people, has changed what we thought we knew about genetic determinism and the environment. Like her previous book, Harden doesn't recommend sticking our fingers in our ears and pretending like the science doesn't exist; instead, she takes on the big questions, head-on, fearlessly. She also brings in deeply personal narratives, and a literary style that reminds me of some of my favorite authors, such as Andrew Solomon (Far from the tree) or Anne Lamott (Bird by bird), and more. The book will leave you smarter, but also asking big questions about yourself and about society.
March 3, 2026
In "Original Sin" behavioral geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden considers nature versus nurture through the lens of science and Christianity. The book is part academic treatise that details the current state of knowledge about the impact our genes have on our behavior and part memoir of Harden's choice to abandon the Christian church in which she was raised. I liked the structure in which each chapter approaches a topic and brings together science and personal experience as well as literature, pop culture, and relatively recent events.
The idea of blame runs throughout the book but separating nature (our gene pool) and nurture (environmental influences during our childhood) is nigh impossible. There are no answers here, easy, clearcut, or otherwise yet I found myself pausing often to consider the thought-provoking questions and research. I can see this book being a good choice for a fascinating book club discussion, and although it is a demanding read, if you like to be challenged, it's worth sticking with it to the end.
Thank you to Random House for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #originalsin
The idea of blame runs throughout the book but separating nature (our gene pool) and nurture (environmental influences during our childhood) is nigh impossible. There are no answers here, easy, clearcut, or otherwise yet I found myself pausing often to consider the thought-provoking questions and research. I can see this book being a good choice for a fascinating book club discussion, and although it is a demanding read, if you like to be challenged, it's worth sticking with it to the end.
Thank you to Random House for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #originalsin
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Written by an angry ex-Christian who doesn't hesitate to write about why she's angry, this book would be best understood by other ex-fundamentalists. Yet, even though it can be a bit tedious to read at times, I persevered and am glad that I did. Author Harden analyzes why the concept of Original Sin really doesn't make sense. We have learned too much to label human behavior as this or that, to dichotomize it as if other explanations are irrelevant. This book is deeply analytical, written by an author with the background to speak with authority. Harden is a psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin. It's not an easy read, but it's definitely worthwhile. I recommend it.
March 12, 2026
I approached the book with the expectation of a scientific perspective from someone who left the church, but found a religious document from someone who is a scientist.
This led to further disappointment when the conclusion was ambiguous but suggested an unspecified reason for hope.
This quote from the book sums it up well, "Like the Christian stories, the scientific ones are also trying to answer some big questions. Why does a person behave as they do? Who is to blame and for what? Who deserves to suffer and why? And on closer examination, many of the supposedly scientific stories turn out to be modern retellings of, or reactions to, the ancient Christian myths."
This led to further disappointment when the conclusion was ambiguous but suggested an unspecified reason for hope.
This quote from the book sums it up well, "Like the Christian stories, the scientific ones are also trying to answer some big questions. Why does a person behave as they do? Who is to blame and for what? Who deserves to suffer and why? And on closer examination, many of the supposedly scientific stories turn out to be modern retellings of, or reactions to, the ancient Christian myths."
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I enjoyed the good explanations of the science and loved Dr. Harden’s undogmatic approach; she did a great job of discussing the lack of definitive answers. And I found aspects of the memoir portion particularly relevant. But I found the writing not conversational enough for my taste; I felt like I was being lectured. Some of the writing was just too literary and it brought me out of the story. I also thought that many parts of the memoir were not relevant to the story. Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the advance reader copy.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Original Sin
By Kathryn Paige Harden
My rule of thumb with any book is that if I am not engaged within the first 100 pages, I put it down. I have to say that I only made it through the first 55 pages in this one when I had to give up.
This book is a mish mash of ideas - both scientific and pseudo-scientific -which don't seem to hang together. I just found it boring and difficult to follow – and quite honestly, it wasn't long before I chose not continue.
I don't like to give bad reviews, but I couldn't do better with this one.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.
By Kathryn Paige Harden
My rule of thumb with any book is that if I am not engaged within the first 100 pages, I put it down. I have to say that I only made it through the first 55 pages in this one when I had to give up.
This book is a mish mash of ideas - both scientific and pseudo-scientific -which don't seem to hang together. I just found it boring and difficult to follow – and quite honestly, it wasn't long before I chose not continue.
I don't like to give bad reviews, but I couldn't do better with this one.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.
March 10, 2026
The author, a psychologist, looks at the Christian idea of original sin and the scientific idea of nature versus nurture. This is a blend of memoir, history, psychology and philosophy and brings a lot of ideas together about why people are violent. I'm not sure it really answers too many questions, other than it is both nature and nurture that form to create violence, but it is a very interesting exploration of the topic. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Honest, thought provoking, rigorous research and science, yet reads like a conversation. Important themes for those of us in the "sandwich" life stage of caring for our parents and our children at the same time. Harden puts on the page deep seated questions for me as a daughter, mother, wife, sibling (and general human adult in society?) in a relatable and understandable way. Highly recommend, even better if you can read with friends or a book club to continue the conversation.
March 16, 2026
This book was very okay but I would’ve liked a bit more. This author is very knowledgeable in speaking on the genetic basis of human behavior, but the end was too open ended for me and didn’t seem to offer any tangible societal solutions to the issues she discussed. As I read I was hoping to hear about proactive approaches to limiting the risks of those who are genetically pre-disposed to antisocial behavior, but I finished the book with more questions than answers.
March 9, 2026
Essential reading
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