Identical Strangers
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were both born in New York City and adopted as infants. When they were 35 years old, they met and found they were “identical strangers.”
This story originally aired on NPR in 2007.
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| 0:00.0 | We're all intrigued by a cheating scandal. |
| 0:03.3 | The college admissions scandal, Maradonna's Hand of God, |
| 0:07.1 | but what did these scandals tell us about the world? |
| 0:09.6 | That's exactly what a new show from Radiotopia and Defectra Media is all about. |
| 0:14.4 | The show is called Only If You Get Caught. |
| 0:17.0 | Host Patrick Redford takes us through stories of rule breakers and why they did it. |
| 0:21.7 | It'll explore topics like what Lance Armstrong's doping scandal tells us about trans panic, |
| 0:26.8 | or why the WNBA issued its largest fine to an owner for letting its players fly private. |
| 0:32.8 | Listen to Only If You Get Caught, starting October 21st, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:42.0 | Music Only if you get caught starting October 21st wherever you get your podcasts. Radiotopia from PRX. |
| 0:46.3 | From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. |
| 0:49.3 | I'm Joe Richmond. |
| 0:51.3 | It's an old debate. |
| 0:52.8 | What is it that makes us us? |
| 0:56.0 | Our DNA or our life experiences. |
| 0:58.0 | Genes or environment. |
| 1:00.0 | Nature versus nurture. |
| 1:02.0 | I spent most of my life in the nurture camp. |
| 1:05.0 | It just felt to me like such a large part of our personalities, our path in life, is shaped by circumstances. But then something happened that made me |
| 1:13.3 | change my mind. I had kids. Two girls born just 15 months apart. And they couldn't be more |
| 1:19.6 | different. It's been that way from day one. They came out, printed a certain way. One has the |
| 1:25.5 | personality of a roller coaster. The other one is steady. One listens to |
... |
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