The Genetics of Evil: Are People Born Bad? - Dr Kathryn Paige Harden - #1066

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2026

⏱️ 181 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden is a psychologist and behavioural geneticist, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and an author. Are people born evil, or does evil emerge from circumstance? While we tend to blame genetics for humanity’s darkest behaviors, science and psychology suggest a far more complicated picture. If biology, environment, and experience all shape behavior, how should society judge, or punish, those who may never have had full control over who they became? Expect to learn what Kathryn learned from her first 4 million-person study, what the evolutionary roots of aggression, dominance, and impulsivity are, if there is a heritability of antisocial behaviour, why punishment is a useful tool for responding to harm, what Kathryn makes of the looksmaxxing movement, and much more… Timestamps: (0:00) Why Kathryn’s Last Book Was So Controversial (5:28) What Drives Risk-Taking Behaviour? (9:21) What Drew Kathryn to the World of Antisocial Behaviour? (11:59) How Humans Have Evolved to Become Deviant (20:48) Should You Wait Until 30 To Try Drugs? (25:02) Is Punishment More About Circumstance Than Crime? (31:02) How Genetic is Deviance? (35:14) Why Bad Behaviour in Kids Makes Us So Uncomfortable (43:01) When Do You Become Responsible For Your Actions? (47:43) Is Addiction Genetic? (53:47) Are Men More Prone to Antisocial Traits? (1:03:24) If Behaviour is Genetic, How Do We Justify Punishment? (1:11:09) Should Genetic Behaviour Affect Criminal Sentencing? (1:26:52) Why Do We Crave Retribution? (1:32:05) Do We Enjoy Judging Others? (1:43:15) Does Prison Actually Work? (1:51:49) We Need to Question Our Own Moral Instincts (1:58:14) The Top Reasons Epigenetic Inheritance So Controversial (2:04:50) Does Environment During Pregnancy Shape a Child’s Genes? (2:10:11) How Much of Motherhood is Just Luck? (2:13:46) Kathryn’s Ethical Stance on Embryo Selection (2:29:37) Can Embryo Selection Prevent a Crumbling Genome? (2:36:45) Is It Fair to Suppress Genetic Behaviour in Men? (2:49:25) Is Looksmaxxing Damaging Our Genetics? (2:59:55) Where to Find Kathryn Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/deals⁠ Get a free bottle of D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and more when you first subscribe at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom New pricing since recording: Function is now just $365, plus get $25 off at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/books⁠ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: ⁠https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom⁠ Check out Kathryn's book: https://tinyurl.com/msd53w6s Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠ #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠ #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠ - Get In Touch: Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast⁠ Email: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/contact⁠ - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What happened after the publication of your last book?
0:03.0	Oh, it was a wild time.
0:06.0	I, there was a lot of controversy, there's a lot of pushback.
0:11.0	The conversations that I had with real people, not with other academics, but with just people who wrote me,
0:19.0	people who, you know, happened to encounter the book in some way.
0:23.1	That was fantastic.
0:25.3	People wrote me and they said, I've always wondered why I'm so different from my parents or why I'm so different from my siblings.
0:33.1	And your work has given me a new way of understanding that.
0:36.5	They wrote to me about their decision to have kids or their decision not to have kids
0:42.0	and how thinking about genetics has shaped that.
0:45.1	So that part of the conversation, which is the dialogue between an author and their readers,
0:49.9	was fantastic.
0:51.1	I loved that.
0:52.1	And then there was another part of the dialogue, which was me with
0:55.3	other academics. And that was really surprising to me, in part because I felt like they, some people
1:04.6	needed to turn me into a villain in order to get their own message out. And I was kind of caught off guard by that whole process. So
1:14.8	I wish I could say that I had a thicker skin now, but I don't in many ways. I really do care
1:23.0	what people think. I care about getting it right. So it took me a bit to think about how to get myself back out there in terms of the ideas
1:32.0	in the wake of that.
1:34.0	Especially if you're doing something that you think is trying to educate people about
1:38.4	what is true.
1:39.5	Yes.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Williamson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Chris Williamson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.