Coincidence in the lives of twins

Press, 5 June 1982, Page 16

Coincidence in the lives of twins

Twins. By Peter Watson. Hutchinson, 1981. 207 pp. $26.25.

(Reviewed by

Ralf Unger)

This book has the subtitle, "An investigation into the strange coincidences in the lives of separated twins.” During the last few years, scientists at the University of Minnesota have been fortunate enough to discover and examine 16 pairs of identical twins who grew up apart after the first few days or weeks of their lives, The first section of the book is devoted to the remarkable coincidences in behaviour, Ornaments, naming of children, and fears that these one-egg-celled individuals shared in their different environments; : ' :

For example, one twin had named his first son James Alan, the. other .James Allan. Both had owned a dog and named it Toy. Both had been employed by MacDonald's hamburger chain. In one set of twins, one was brought up in Israel as a Jew, the other as a Catholic in Germany. When the two met in middle-age, they both wore the same type of wire-rimmed spectacles, had the same short, clipped moustaches, and both sneezed humorously to watch the reactions of other people. Another pair, the “giggle” twins, were •put out for. adoption soon after birth. When they met in their forties, both had a habit of pushing up their noses which both called -“squidging”, both arrived at their reunion wearing a beige dress and a brown velvet jacket, and both had fallen downstairs aged 15, leaving them both

with weak ankles. The evidence goes. One pair of twins had both been married five times, showed signs of “a typical depressive neurosis”, and as children had dropped their mothers’ pies and been spanked for it. To the disappointment of the reader who wants to believe in a bond between twins, a belief reinforced in fables and literature, the author has a splendid section on the science of coincidence. Here, in simple mathematical terms, he explains the chance of similar factors appearing in different people and therefore the probability of identical twins, for instance, both being nail-biters. He discusses the possibility of. similar clothing being worn on a day of . meeting, of jewellery of a certain type,"of driving the same brand of car, and of having the same .favourite alcoholic drink. ■■ Even though one pair of twins may share, say, 27 characteristics, this has to be set against the hundreds and thousands of characteristics which any person has, and which are capable of being shared with someone else, even to an example of Adolf Hiller and the Chief Rabbi having at least 27 similar characteristics! Twins historically . have been worshipped, or butchered in the womb or just beyond — in one tribe because if they were of different sexes they were suspected of having sexual intercourse in utero. Now twins have become a fruitful laboratory for research into genetics. This applies to disorders such as cancer and to those mental illnesses which still have not been comfortably' pigeonholed into

environmental or hereditary compartments, such as schizophrenia and manic depression. In the future it is likely that there will be very few twins adopted into different families, thanks to the changing attitudes towards illegitimacy; the question is open of how much more alike, biologically and psychologically, are twins compared with two unconnected people who bump into each other on the street.

Early twin research was given a very bad name by the publications of the educationist, Sir Cyril Burt, which in the 1970 s were exposed as frauds with figures having been manipulated to fit into his theory of the entirely genetic inheritance of intelligence. The present author concludes ■ that genetics does appear to have a much greater influence on behaviour than is generally thought, from alcoholism through crime to schizophrenia, and that there is a time clock in our psychological development,set before birth, that influences events that happen to us during our life. There is, however, no evidence that there are mysterious extra-sensory phenomena involved in the twin bond and it is apparent that the quality of parents’ behaviour has a great deal to do with changing behaviour within the inherent limitations of heredity. This is a provoking, up-to-date, work by a social psychologist who has used his additional journalistic expertise to produce a most readable book on a perenially fascinating subject.