Original Sin

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 life: 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.

About the Author

Kathryn Paige Harden is a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab.

Harden received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia and completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

She has been honored by the American Psychological Association for her distinguished scientific contributions to the study of genetics and human individual differences.