Sunday, September 23, 2012

Twin Telepathy?

Two men, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, are very alike. They both like watching stock-car racing, drinking Miller Lite, building furiture, and sitting in their trucks. Both of their dog's names was Toy. They didn't even know each other until Jim Springer found out that they were twins, set out to find Lewis, and they talked on the phone for the first time. What happened was that they were genetically identical twins who were adopted by different families 37 days after they were born. After that talked on the phone they were tested by Thomas Bouchard who is a University of Minnesota psychologist. After the results came in, they found out that these two men, even though they were separated at birth were basically the same person.
Some question the fact that identical twins being very similar is no coincidence. They posit that if you walk down the street and find some random person you have never met, you will most likely find some very interesting similaraties between the two of you.
This whole arguement is based on the debate of nature-nurture. In the example of the twins, it seems clear that nature is what really decides who you are because these people are twins who do not live together, and they are incredibally similar.
From my experience, it seems like the case of the twins is correct because, the twins that I see walking around all the time tend to be very similar in personality, and these sets of twins live together. Kal v'chomer, for twins that don't even know each, and still have so many things in common, it just strengthens that opinion.
We probably will not know for some time if the twins case is the outlier or the norm, but it does point fingers to the fact that we are based off genetics.

1 comment:

  1. Being a twin myself, I would be the first to admit that twin telepathy is indeed a real concept. But in all honesty, I think this side certainly advances the idea that nature is more important than nurture. When covering my debate on the nature vs. nurture, I could not find a thorough proof to refute this argument of twins separated at birth for the nurture side. Either this is just a freaky coincidence or nature has the strongest effect on how we function. As a twin myself, I often notice that Dylan and I have certainly grown up very differently with diverse traits. I feel like in identical twins, nature has more of an influence, while in fraternal twins, the twins are more likely to be influenced by their environments.

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