Tl;dr — A fascinating and wonderful mash up of science, philosophy, and memoir to create a can’t put down book. Harden uses religious and moral concepts to frame chapters, covering the behavioral genetics of a wide range of fraught issues in today’s discourse spanning blame, responsibility, and virtue. Five or so years ago, I was still active on (then) Twitter and enthusiastically followed Kathryn Paige Harden’s careful and precise work on behavioral genetics, where she also patiently and repeatedly communicated about fraught topics. She remains my go-to expert on issues of behavioral genetics, especially when outrageous claims are made about the field and its findings. It’s also where I heard about her first book, The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality (2021), which remains one of my most highly recommended books, appearing on not one but three lists on this blog over the years. I was understandably ecstatic when I heard she was publishing a second book this year, Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness. It may surprise folks, but I rarely look into books much at all before I read them. I listened to some of her conversion with my friend Xavier Bonilla on his Converging Dialogues podcast and religion was a huge focus. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I picked this up this past weekend. This is one of those books that surprised me in all the best ways. If you’ve read her first book, this is going to be quite the change in style. Part of this is evident by the publishers of the books. The first by Princeton University Press: an academic press that is notorious for well-researched, academic, yet accessible books if you have a science background. Contrast that with Original Sin, published by