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Mind

Fate vs free will: A new book clarifies the determinism debate

We're not wrong to think we have free will, but The Science of Fate by Hannah Critchlow reveals the moral complexities underpinning our sense of unlimited choice

By Jonathon Keats

12 June 2019

hand — Your mind can stop your body doing what your genes dictate
Mat Jacob/Tendance Floue

Hannah Critchlow
Hodder & Stoughton

WHEN Bradley Waldroup was accused of murder, his attorney sent his DNA to a genetics lab. The results changed his fate. The lab found he had a rare variant of the MAO-A gene that is strongly associated with violent behaviour in people who – like him – were abused as children. Instead of receiving the death penalty, Waldroup was sentenced to 32 years in prison in 2009.

At stake in the…

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