Twins (classic)

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twins are used to fielding all sorts of questions, like "Can you read each other's minds?" or "Can you feel each other's pain?" Two of our Planet Money reporters are twins, and they have heard them all.

But it's not just strangers on the street who are fascinated by twins. Scientists have been studying twins since the 1800s, trying to get at one of humanity's biggest questions: How much of what we do and how we are is encoded in our genes? The answer to this has all kinds of implications, for everything from healthcare to education, criminal justice and government spending.

Today on the show, we look at the history of twin studies. We ask what decades of studying twins has taught us. We look back at a twin study that asked whether genes influence antisocial behavior and rule-breaking. One of our reporters was a subject in it. And we find out: are twin studies still important for science?

(Note: This episode originally ran in 2019.)

Our show today was hosted by Sally Helm and Karen Duffin. It was produced by Darian Woods and Nick Fountain. It was edited by Bryant Urstadt.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Sally Home here.
0:02.8	Today's episode is a rerun from 2019,
0:05.9	and in fact, it is specifically from August 2nd, 2019,
0:10.4	as you will hear.
0:11.5	Hope you enjoy.
0:12.5	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:15.9	When I was about nine years old,
0:20.7	my sister and I were brought to a university campus in Los Angeles to be studied.
0:26.9	I remember going up in the elevator and being very intimidated just about the whole setup.
0:31.5	This is my sister, Eliza.
0:33.4	So, they split us up.
0:35.5	Eliza got taken into a separate room.
0:38.0	And I think I was the first one with the cap.
0:41.4	Okay, Sally, tell me more about this cap.
0:44.0	Well, it was a shower cap looking thing.
0:46.7	It was like gel and the hole and the little holes and there were wires coming out of your head.
0:52.1	Yeah, like electrodes.
0:53.6	The scientists put this thing on her head,
0:56.3	connected those electrodes to her scalp,
0:59.4	and then they turned on the TV.
1:01.9	And then they showed us videos that were disturbing or sad or scary.
1:09.4	It went away.
	...

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