Oren Harman

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Oren Harman is a writer and historian of science from Jerusalem. He was born on January 25, 1973, and grew up in Jerusalem and New York City, where he played soccer and was nicknamed “the little Israeli magician.” He studied at Hebrew University, earning a summa cum laude degree in history, biology, and musicology, and he earned M.Sc. and D.Phil. degrees from Oxford with distinction. In 2003 he was elected to the Young Academy of Sciences of Israel and he has received the Alon Award for academic excellence.

From 2008 to 2021 he chaired Bar-Ilan University’s Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society. He is a Senior Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where he hosted the public lecture series Talking About Science in the 21st Century (2018–2023) and now directs the Science and Creativity Hub. Harman’s research covers the history and philosophy of modern biology, evolutionary theory, altruism, historical biography, science and mythology, metamorphosis, and the historiography of the life sciences. He writes for The New Republic and Haaretz Magazine, and co-created with Yanay Ofran and Ido Bahat the TV series Did Herzl Really Say That? about changing cultural identities in Israel. His work has appeared in Science, Nature, The New York Times, The Times, TLS, The New York Review of Books, The Economist, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Radiolab, and more. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Yael and their three children. His books have been translated into many languages.

Selected works:
- The Man Who Invented the Chromosome (Harvard University Press, 2004): the story of Cyril Darlington and ideas that foreshadowed evolvability.
- The Price of Altruism (2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Science and Technology): origin of altruism and the life of George Price; NYT Book of the Year; long-listed for the Royal Society Winton Prize; nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; inspired plays and radio.
- Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World (2018): major events from the Big Bang to human consciousness.
- Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History (2025): praised as a masterful new classic of natural history.
- Rebels (2008), Outsiders (2013), Dreamers (2018): a trilogy on the growth of the life sciences.
- Handbook of the Historiography of Biology: co-editor.
- Darwin’s Missing Notebook (2024): a children’s book praised for schools and chosen for national curriculum for 4–6 graders.