My friend Tom posted an article in response to a TED video on death-row inmates I posted yesterday. The Brain on Trial from The Atlantic magazine argues what I think many of us already suspect: that we are not as in control of our lives as we might like to think.

Who we can be starts with our molecular blueprints—a series of alien codes written in invisibly small strings of acids—well before we have anything to do with it. Each of us is, in part, a product of our inaccessible, microscopic history.