We're happy to accept the idea that
physical characteristics, like speed and
endurance, have a strong genetic
component.
Fast dogs are bred from
parents who are fast.
But when it comes
to us, to our personality and the choices
we make in life, we feel differently.
The
idea that we are all running around a
track following some predetermined
genetic script is repellent.
But some
twin stories really make you wonder.
Now,
although the story of Jenny and Margaret
is pretty surprising, it's nothing
compared with the astonishing story of
the Jim twins.
Meet Jim Lewis and Jim
Springer.
They have different surnames and they
don't look much alike but they are
identical twins.
The Jims were separated as babies and
were reunited when there were 39 years
old.
It was a very good warm feeling you know?
It's like you had something a favorite
of yours and you lost it and you had to
have it.
You know?
And you finally found it and that’s
a good feeling
to find that thing.
Well that's
the way it was with Jim.
Words came really
easy
When the Jims met for the first time,
they discovered that their lives were
peppered with bizarre coincidences.
My
first wife's name was Linda.
My first
wife's name was Linda.
I divorced Linda and
married Betty.
And then my second wife’s
name was Betty, and now I’m married to Sandy.
Well
she's kind of leery and hopes I
don't ever come across a Sandy.
I got
interested in woodwork because my
father he was always doing woodwork.
I've
been doing woodworking for quite a long
time.
My first son’s name was James
Alan.
My first son is James Alan.
My
favorite beer was a Miller Lite and I've
always smoked Salem cigarettes.
My
favorite beer is Miller Lite and
smoking, I smoke Camel Lite but then I
smoke Salem Lite, too.
I switch back and
forth.
I was in the Sheriff's Department in
Miami County as a deputy.
I was deputy
sheriff for seven years.
It's impossible
to fathom the odds for some of the Jims
coincidences.
The information is simply
not available.
But for some of the habits
they shared we can do the calculations.
When the two Jims met in 1979,
each was driving a Chevrolet.
And it
turns out, according to the experts, that
the chances of any one man driving a
Chevrolet then was 71.
Now, both men
driving a Chevrolet would, therefore, be
49 to 1.
And they were also both heavy smokers
and heavy drinkers.
And the chances of
any two men both being heavy drinkers
would be about 35 to 1.
And at that
time in 1979, the chance of any two men
both being heavy smokers was about 300
to 1.
Well the
chances of each one of these on its own
isn't really that surprising, but if you
put them all together, the overall
coincidence is really rather amazing.
To
get the odds of all the similarities
being down to pure coincidence, you have
to multiply them together.
In betting
terms it's called an accumulator, and
these figures give you odds of half a
million to one against two men sharing
those habits by pure chance.
Same sort of odds I might get here on
any one dog winning every race till the
end of the season.
It will be impossible
way to win 50 races.
And if you think it
could win 50 races, I would offer you a
half a million to one.
Has that ever
happened?
It's never happened, no, and it
never would.
So you’d be safe as a bookie here?
You would be completely safe.
If you take any two people and
look hard enough, you'll always find some
similarities, but the two Jims are so
alike
despite being brought up by different
parents in different homes that it's
hard to escape the thought that they've
been shaped by forces deeper and
ultimately more important than just
their home environment.
Psychologist Tom
Bouchard has met more separated twins
than anyone else in the world but the
Jims were his first.
They kicked off a 20
year study that's changing the way we
think about being human.
The first week
we was there we answered 10,000 questions,
true or false and multiplication.
We look
at their hobbies, their the jobs they've
held, the personality traits, their
abilities.
They took photos of our ears, our
eyes, and they took her fingerprints.
Their
height, their weight, their brainwaves.
The
twins
IQ and personality profile was
strikingly similar.
It was as if they had
tested the same person twice.
The very first morning we started to
work with them, one of the twins put his
hand on the on the table and I noticed
that he bit his nails.
I remember saying
to myself now isn't that interesting?
Wouldn't it be interesting if his twin
brother bit his nails?
And as I was
thinking that his twin brother put his
hand on the table and sure enough, they
were both nail biters, and I said, you
know that's not on any psychological
test or any psychological characteristic.
the way you wear your hat the way you
sip your tea the gyms were only the
first of hundreds of separated twins to
pass through bouchard's hands fewer as
remarkable as them in fact some were
quite dissimilar there are not carbon
copies of each other they each have the
differences are great enough so they
each have their own personality etc but
when you work with them you can just see
the kind of similarity in the underlying
template the way you weigh the two twins
are like variations on a theme
the memory of all of
take that away from me away what
behavior geneticists have discovered is
that most characteristics that you can
measure reliably with psychological
tests mental abilities personality and
vocational interest they all show
genetic influence in the range of 40 to
50 percent but that's typically what we
find oh this is common level of genetic
influence across lots and lots of traits
the way you hold your knife the way we
danced over all the twins who had grown
up in different homes were just as alike
psychologically and physically as the
twins who have grown up together no they
come
and there was one other quite startling
finding
probing beneath the surface they found
the percentage of fat in Margaret and
Jenny's bodies is the same and their
bone density is virtually identical
they are also both intensely religious
God is love and God showed his love for
us by sending his only Son on into the
world deal with Yun Jie light far
Liat bead and my Nene Cal bill truth or
if from the day I found out that I had a
twin sister I prayed every day my
prayers were answered God knew what I
was alone and evilly he found me for
Jenny I really believe this as identical
twins have a similar intensity of
religious belief is something that Tom
bouchard's twin studies had consistently
confirmed we had eventually published a
paper on it on we call the heritability
of religiousness and we found a
significant genetic effect now there are
people who just find this hard to
believe
well I find it hard to believe I didn't
believe it when we started I wouldn't
have even studied it
what Boosh art has concluded from 20
years work is that genes are just as
important as environment in shaping
personality and social attitude and that
applies as much to the rest of us as it
does to twins
no one really knows how personality can
be laid down when egg meets sperm
my own belief is that what are inherited
are genes that create structures in the
brain and these structures in the brain
drive behavior
it's certainly true there are some
aspects of personality that you see from
a very early age so early they seem to
be pre-programmed
English (auto-generated)