Identical twins separated, then reunited, have many amazing similarities. Nature vs Nurture?

Paco Dennis

Paco Dennis

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This one of five amazing stories at https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/5-true-stories-twins-separated-at-birth.htm

"The two Jims — born together, adopted, reared and settled in Ohio — were separated at 4 weeks old and didn't find each other again until they were 39, in 1979. The identical twins led remarkably similar lives in those nearly four decades, as Edwin Chen notes in his New York Times article:

  • They were both married, and divorced, to women named Linda.
  • They both remarried. To women named Betty.
  • Their first sons were both named James. The sons' middle names are Allan and Alan.
  • They both enjoyed woodworking.
  • They were both nail biters.
  • They both suffered from stress headaches.
  • They both, as children, owned a dog named "Toy."
  • They were both in law enforcement.
"If someone else brought this material to me and said: 'This is what I've got,' I'd say I didn't believe it," psychologist Thomas J. Bouchard Jr., told The New York Times in 1979. Bouchard was the director of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart Project, a precursor to the MTFS. "The probability of two people independently being given the same name is not that rare. But when you start to compound the coincidences, they become highly unlikely very quickly. In fact, I'm flabbergasted by some of the similarities, " Bouchard continued.

To many, the story of the Jim Twins provides a slam-dunk answer to the nature-nurture debate. Here's what the Minnesota Center for Twin & Family Research had to say:

We have found that an identical twin reared away from his or her co-twin seems to have about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, and attitudes as one who has been reared with his or her co-twin. This finding leads us to believe that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment. Given that the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment, and given that these twins are just as similar as twins reared together, we can conclude that the environment, rather than making twins alike, makes them different."
 

Being a mother of twins most of these stories are are very old news to me, as i read every thing i could get my hands after the delivery room surprise in 1975 and still do.

What most people don't think about is how much influence nurture (and life experience not just parenting) must have when identicals raised together can vary so widely in choices not just within the individual pairs sometimes but also sets of twins can relate differently to each other and the outside world depending on environments growing up.

There have been identicals that developed own language and were extremely codependant some of them ended up institutionalized with mental issues. BTW, while they believe there's a genetic component to some MH issues, including schizophrenia, the most predictive factor in whether some some will become symptomatic is if they are raised by a parent with who has been diagnosed with it.

I insisted on treating my boys as individuals, dressed them differently, always talked to, related to them as individuals. Still, when they reached puberty they behaved with each other the way adolescents often behave with opposite sex parents because at that age they are aware of wanting to establish their own identities.

This led me to suspect that twins raised together often override genetic predispositions because even when raised by parent who stresses their individuality, the world (other relatives, friends, teachers) puts so much emphasis on their twinness that the impulse to differentiate from their twin becomes stronger than genetic inclinations. Identicals raised unaware of each other are more free to follow natural tendencies.
 

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