I find identical twins very interesting. Instead of one of you there are two of you. I think it would be nice to have identical twin as my sibling. That way we could fill in for each other. Just think of it, if you yourself did not want to go somewhere you could have your twin go for you. I guess I really find it intriguing because I have known a few identical twins before and encountered some of their situations. One student in our Psychology class has an identical twin sister and it is so interesting to be around them. I did not even know about the twins when I meet the one I work with. So that situation left me to mistake our fellow student sister as the twin I work with. She had no idea who I was and it actually was a very funny experience. When I am around them now I can tell them apart, but only because one has long hair and the other has short hair.
Articles say that identical twins score higher in IQ tests then fraternal twins. Some intelligence must come from heredity. Studies also show that environment also has an impact on high IQ scores. Some scholars argue against heredity information because they feel that intelligence is mostly based on the environment around you. Identical twins share their heredity and genetics make-up, but they also share the environment. Having someone so close to being like you and also the same age logically is an environment for competition and siblings pushing each others intelligence. Fraternal twins share the same environment just like identical twins, but not so closely the same genetics that identical twins do. The fact that identical twins have higher scores may lead one to think genetics is the main reason for the higher scores. But then again could it be the close genetic back round that is influencing a more conducive environment for learning and thus environment is the reason. I could argue either way.
Heredity Versus Environment - The Nature-nurture Controversy, Exploring Heredity And Environment: Research Methods, Beyond Heritability
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I also agree that having a twin would be neat. Twins are very common in my family. My uncles that are six years younger than me are ferternal twins. My father is an identical twin, but the other one died during child birth. My grandmother tells me to not have any more kids because they will probably be twins. I don't know about that, but I am not sure I would want to find out. My uncles that are twins do seem to be pretty smart, when they bother to think things through. They were able to both jump ahead by two grades while in high school. They also seem to be able to be able to know what the other one is thinking and can finish each others sentences. Kind of creepy, Don't you think?
ReplyDeleteYes I think that is a bit creepy lol because I see that with these twins. But then again I do not really think that is a twin thing because that happens with my friends and I, even sometimes with my little brother or cousins I just think that has to do with being around them so much. But it is probably a lot more in common with twins. I am sometimes wish I had a twin sister but then there are times I am glad I am the only girl because I am so spoiled and have my two bothers and all my guy cousins to take care of me that is probably why I am mean.Lol bur twins are very instersting.
ReplyDeleteTwins and multiples are part of my family history. To expand on your argument about heredity, I have an interesting personal example. My great-grandmother is a triplet, who also gave birth to three sets of twins plus seven other children. All of the twins were fraternal boy/girl pairs, and one of the twin boys is my grandfather. There were no multiples born to any of these twins.
ReplyDeleteI was born and raised in Butte, and have hundreds of cousins from my grandfather's side of the family all over the country. At a family reunion when I was 12, I was introduced to a cousin I had never met before. This 12 year old boy was my clone - we looked identical, except he was a cowboy (cowboy hat and boots, belt buckle, country shirt), and I was a jock (Nike hat, t-shirt, basketball shorts and shoes). Our parents are first cousins, each born to different sets of the male twins. In other words, our grandpas were both fraternal twins from a different set, and their grandsons of the same age looked identical. The whole family commented on our likeness to each other, and the discussion of heredity and twins and cultural and environmental up-bringing was the main topic of conversation that weekend.
We had a dance later that evening at the reunion. Once the baseball and cowboy hats came off and we "let down our guard", we were dancing away with our other cousins yet on display for the entire family - no one could get over the resemblence between us once we removed the cowboy and jock personas. We also had a great connection and got along really well. Take away the cultural up-bringing and the accessories that marked us as "jock versus cowboy", and you found two 12-year old boys who looked like twins, felt like brothers, but were long lost second cousins whose grandfathers were fraternal twin brothers from different sets.
I would argue environmental and cultural factors play a huge role in the how a person develops, acts, lives, and becomes the person they are, regardless of whether they are twins. Genetics plays a huge role of course, but the cultural and environmental factors are key in a person's development - twin or singlet, fraternal or identical. Set aside the cowboy versus jock persona brought on by cultural upbringing and environmental factors, and you have identical-looking cousins who in every aspect were really identical twins "many times removed" - the power of the traveling gene!
Having a twin would be both an amazing and annoying experience because having someone who can dress up like you and pretty much be you could have tons of advantages. It would also be way annoying because you could be mistaken as the other sibling all the time. The whole thing about having better I.Q scores seems pretty interesting to me, just think at what you could do with your twin academics wise when you push each other to be smarter then the other.
ReplyDeleteWell, since Bre was so nice to mention me in this blog, I thought I should make a comment! I have an identical twin sister and she is my best friend. I believe that twins have a closer bond than other siblings, I mean come on, we shared a womb for 9 months! Like Timmy said, it's amazing, but also annoying at times. We would get so mad at our parents for trying to dress us alike everyday, same outfit but different colors, always being called the wrong name, having people come up to us and ask "Hey! Are you guys twins?" or the no brainer "Are you guys the same age?" Well duh! Of course after 21 years of this we learned to accept it, as well as all the stares we get from people walking by us.
ReplyDeleteAs for the IQ part, it's unfortunate that we missed out on it haha. We both have an average intelligence. We do, however, seem to excel more on tests or homework if we are in the same class because we have that competitive drive to be the smarter twin. If Jenny (my sister) and I were brought up in different environments, I honestly think that we would still have the exact same personality regardless of how we were raised.
Twins are freaky, they really are. When I see twins together, I'm always like, "Wow that is so weird how much they look alike, it's just creepy!" Then I think, well jeez, that's probably what people say about us when they see us together haha. When we were a few months old, our parents would put us on opposite sides of the crib, but every single time they would check up on us, we would some how wiggle our way to the middle so we could be touching each other. When we started crawling, we would meet up in the middle of the floor, put our heads together and take off in different directions as fast as we could. Our parents say we did that all the time to mess with them because they didn't know which one to chase after first haha.
twins are a true gift i think....my aunt recently just had twins and it runs common in my family and i think that its a cool thing in the reproduction process that one little egg can split and make a twins its just really awesome.
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