Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - The Twin Episode with Dr. Nancy Segal

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Kate and Oliver are joined by Dr. Nancy Segal, a psychologist and Director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton for a fascinating conversation about all things twins. They discuss the science behind twins, nature vs. nurture, stories of twins who met later in life, and much more.Executive Producers: Kate Hudson and Oliver HudsonProduced by Allison BresnickEdited by Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is powered by Simplecast.This episode is sponsored by:Sakara (sakara.com/sibling)Coors Light (coors.com/hudson)Coinbase (coinbase.com/sibling)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. September is a great time to travel, especially because it's my birthday in September, especially internationally. Because in the past, we've stayed in some pretty awesome Airbnbs in Europe. Did we've one in France, we've one in Greece, we've actually won in Italy a couple of years ago. Anyway, it just made our trip feel extra special.

So if you're heading out this month, consider hosting your home on Airbnb with the co-host feature. You can hire someone local to help manage everything. Find a co-host at Airbnb.ca slash host. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club.

The new podcast from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Books is the official audio book and ebook home for Reese's Book Club. Visit apple.co-forward slash Reese Apple Books to find out more. I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model.

I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues. By talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all. We basically sold our souls, and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, what did you help her? Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson.

We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship. And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry. No, no. Sibling reverie. Don't do that with your mouth. That's good. Dr. Nancy Siegel.

Yes, I call her DNS. So I thought this was so cool. We talked to Dr. Nancy. This was like a grill session. It was like just like, well, then what if this happens? But then what if that happens? Oh, my God, are you, what? That happened?

We also forgot to ask a question afterwards. if you were like, why didn't we ask that question? Which one was it? First of all, explain who she is. Okay, so Nancy, Dr. Siegel, Nancy Siegel, is the go-to twin expert. 25-plus years studying only twins. She's the director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University Fullerton. She's traveled the world studying twins and exploring nature versus nurture.

Which is the great question. Exactly, because Katie and I are fact- jumping at the bit with that, like the nature versus nurture thing, because we come from a family where we have the same values and we do things a little bit differently. So the whole nature and nurture thing is a big play. It plays big in sort of the way that I think. And so in this context with twins, it was just fascinating. Yeah, so fascinating.

And she really broke down the differences, you know, and shared some crazy stories about twins meeting later in life and then some of the similarities that they shared and obviously well maybe I don't want to ruin that I'm not going to ruin no I'm not going to remember that you guys are going to listen it's a fascinating conversation yeah it's amazing and so you're you're going to they're there's stories you're going to hear we're like what the hell I mean it's it's really just amazing amazing stuff so here is dr. Nancy Siegel Hello, doctor. Hi, how are you, Kate and Oliver?

How are you? Really nice to meet you. Welcome to our sibling revelry podcast. I love the name. It's fabulous. Thanks. It's what we strive for, you know, to revel in each other. Which happens 5% of the time.

No, that's ridiculous. Oh, sorry, seven, seven. And you're the big brother, Oliver, right? I am. You're the first one who's gotten that right. Yes. That's, I was just so weird Because he looks so much older than me

I would think I look pretty good You look great You look great Hey, thanks I'm a fraternal twin I don't know if you know that But I have a fraternal twin sister

And she looks a lot older than me But I'm technically the older one Oh really? It's kind of weird Because everyone assumes she's older But she's not By how long are you older Seven minutes

But that can mean a lot when you're a kid Well I'm gonna actually that's funny Does that, does that, is that something that always comes into play when you're, when twins are talking about who's older and who's younger? Or is it tongue in cheek or does it matter? Once in a great while. It doesn't really matter. I mean, she sort of took the position of the older one, so I've lived with it. I'm comfortable with where I am.

Oh, my God. For everyone listening, I would just like for you to introduce yourself a little bit and tell everybody what it is that you do and what you specialize in. Sure. Well, I'm Dr. Nancy Siegel. I'm a psychology professor at California State University Fullerton. I'm also the director and the founder of the Twin Study Center. And we provide information on twins to interested scholars and the public. And that also supports my research and the research of my colleagues and students. I teach special seminars and twin research. And I just love studying twins because they're so professionally engaging and so personally meaningful to me. as a fraternal twin. It's a simple and elegant way of looking at genetic and environment

that influences on behavior. And the great thing for me is that it never gets old. There are always new things to study that are more exciting than last years. Well, it's like, it's something where when you hear studies about twins, I feel like it always makes a headline,

like whether it's the, there was the study that they did with this going into space. Do you remember that? Right. And then the documentary that actually you touch on in your new book. You have a new book.

And did you see that documentary? I did. Crazy. What was it called again? Oh, the documentary, three identical strangers. Yes, yes. That was what it was. Yes.

Oh, sure. Oh, my gosh. What an unbelievable story. It's unbelievable. And the book goes into the stories of all those other twins who were studied and some who were separated who were not studied. Right. We've interviewed a couple twins.

We had the property brothers on. we had... Oh, the bellow twins. That's right. Yeah. And there really is... There really is something very, to me, at least, interviewing all these siblings, very different about the twin experience. But it feels like it's a very codependent relationship a lot of the time and that they have to learn, twins have to learn how to, it's maybe a little bit more difficult to individuate.

You know, I think that the ones who seem to be codependent are the ones that we have to learn. we hear about. But for the most part, twins are a very healthy group. And in fact, one study found that there were lower rates of suicide in twins than a non-twinns because they have a support system built in for life. But what so fascinates me about identical twins in particular is that they just understand each other so well. They have a built-in support system. They understand each other. They react to the world in the same way. And so I don't know if the triple said this in the documentary or not, in another program that I saw with them, they said, you know, it's very easy to have an argument because you know what the other one is going to say. So they think alike. And it's a real

luxury, you know, that I think many people crave and are jealous of. And yet I think it's what we all strive for, somebody who understands us and who accepts us unconditionally. Now, fraternal twins are much more variable in that respect. They're ordinary siblings, just like the two of you, but the difference is that they come into the world at the same point in time. So they share many developmental milestones alike. But they're not quite as close as the identicals on average. They're genetically different. So what makes that up?

Why is that? I mean, why is it that an identical twin has that kind of connection? It's because they're genetically the same. They're essentially clones. And so they react to the world in the same way. They respond to things the same way. they like the same people and opportunities and events. They have the same talents and likes and dislikes.

And so they just move in life in sync. And sometimes they feel that maybe they should differentiate because that's what society expects. You know, we all appreciate individual differences so much and value our uniqueness. But when they try to do that, they often find they're uncomfortable. You know, they're doing what doesn't feel quite right.

And so they get back together again. And I think that we shouldn't judge them if they're happy and get along. But how much is it nature versus nurture? Meaning, like, what if you're a twin and you make the decision not to dress alike or run in the same stride? We have twins who run identical twins.

I see them all the time. I mean, literally for years. In the same outfit. Everything is beautiful and perfect and so in sync they could win some sort of an Olympic medal if they chose to enter. But, yeah, where is the nature versus nurture? If I just said, hey, you know what?

I don't want to be anything like you. I don't want to dress anything like you. Well, you know, that's really the million dollar question. And actually, we don't talk about nature versus nurture. We talk about nature dash nurture or nature and nurture because everything we do is a product of both. Now, the way that we can assign a genetic complement or a genetic value to a certain behavior like personality, most personality traits like extroversion, sociability, have about a 50% genetic influence when you look at populations. But, But at individual levels, if one twin doesn't want to dress alike or wants to be a little more reclusive, that's a decision that person makes. And, you know, genes are not deterministic. Genes act in probabilistic ways. And so they don't tell you dress alike or tell you study art at school. They may incline you in that way.

And it's up to you decide to do it. You know, we find genetic effects on divorce. People with difficult personalities will divorce more than people who don't have difficult personalities, but their genes don't tell them to divorce. They make that decision to divorce or to separate or what have you. Are you saying that divorce can be a genetic disposition? Yes, I can, Kate. It can. But it's not like there is a gene for divorce. It's a constellation of genes that have to do with personality, temperament, things like that. So, for example, I can't blame my mom for the, you can. Divorce. Degenerically coded you with some sort of a divorce

situation maybe a tiny bit tiny bit but ultimately you make that decision and remember remember too that that you don't inherit all your genes from your mom you and charred half and those genes that you get from your dad will interact with the genes from your mom maybe produce a whole different you right right so we definitely have the divorce gene yeah yeah okay but i'm beating the other doing good i'm 16 years in. Hey, all right. You get the award. But the thing is that just because you have that predisposition, it's probably good to know that because then you can be aware of it and maybe take steps to take care of it. So for example, suppose alcoholism runs in your family, right? It doesn't mean that you are destined to be an alcoholic, but because of that, you may moderate your drinks

a little bit, you know, things like that. So it's helpful to know what predispositions run in your family just as a guide but an individual level you know something could have a very highly genetic influence and at your level doesn't mean anything when you're dealing with when you're dealing with identical twins specifically because it seems like the fraternal twins yes you are just born at the same time so those development developmental milestones are are the same but what about sort of the as far as identical twins the levels of competition you know what I mean like yeah that's that's a great area. And, you know, competition takes on a whole new meaning with identical twins because what it means for many pairs is that I can do a little bit better than you, but because I'm genetically the

same, I can probably catch right up. And I think that's why we see a lot of identical twins who are elite athletes in the Olympics. I've done some stats on that. It's a competition, but, but it is the kind of thing where if I do better than you, I'm not going to lord it over you. It's a double victory for both of us. Right. I played with two sets of identical twins and soccer, both of whom went and played at the professional level. But growing up, we played together all the time. And it was really interesting. They were very similar. I mean, they definitely were stronger in different positions, but they were, like, very elite, like great athletes. Yeah, because they, when they come home from school, they have each other to practice with somebody, and I

Identical twin ones said, we have 24-hour practice partners, and other kids don't have that. So they really, what I find so striking about identical twins is that there was such a selfless attitude toward victory, for one. You know, the skiers, Phil and Steve Mayer, they were in the Olympic slaloms back in 1984. One of them turned into gold medal performance and the other one, and he said to his brother, here's what you have to do to beat me. And that's amazing. That's amazing.

Right? I would, I could never be that selfless with my twin. God. Well, it's your fraternal. It's different, I guess. Yeah. I mean, but so, so basically, Oliver and I, if we were fraternal twins, because I have a friend to us fraternal twins, we would be exactly the same genetic makeup as we are right now, only the same age. Right. Yes, that's right. Exactly. Exactly. So what I'm going to explain really quickly how it works, the fraternal twin versus the identical twin. I will. I know because I'm very smart.

Okay. So with identical twins, what happens is that the mother releases an egg, it's fertilized by the father. And sometime within the first 14 days after conception, that fertilized egg divides, and it creates two identical twins. And in the case of those triplets, one of those eggs divided again to produce three of them. Now, with fraternal twins, the mom releases two eggs at the same time, and they're separately fertilized by different sperm from the father. So they're genetically no more alike than siblings, which share half their genes on average, but they're born at the same time. They have the same intrauter environment. So they might be more like because of those reasons. Or two fathers, two one-night stans. Yeah. Oh, you've done, you've done your homework.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can have twins, Kate, that have different fathers. They have the same mother and different fathers, if the mother releases two eggs and she has sexual relations with two different men within about a four-day window, then they can be conceived with different fathers. So they're really genetic half-siblings. How many of them are out there? Wait. How many are out there in the world? We don't know that. We don't know that exactly. A lot of people claim that they're rather rare. Honestly, I don't think they are. I think that it's a matter of detecting them. If, for example, the two fathers had similar ethnicities, hair color, I mean, this and that, then you're not going to detect it. But one of the very first cases ever reported on

was a Caucasian woman who had sexual relations with a Caucasian man and an African American. And I'm sorry, you couldn't hide it. Yeah. Wow. Wow. This is really interesting. From a scientific standpoint, you know, because, of course, I think we all do have some sort of psychic ability. I don't know. Maybe tapping into something bigger, right? I mean, Kate says that she has sort of feelings and she's a bit psychic. I'm just saying. I know. I am. But when you're talking about twins and you're here, especially identical twins, and you're hearing about sort of when one feels something, the other feels the other, or the specific study of the amount of brace. that that one twin had on, when they finally met,

they had the exact same. I mean, is there science-backed? So the couple, the woman who's talking about is there were these twins raised apart in England. They were women. They met in their 30s. And we studied them at the University of Minnesota. And when they showed up at the airport, they were both wearing seven bracelets, three rings, and a watch.

Now, I can look at that in a more scientific vein. because why do you wear jewelry? Because it looks very nice on your hands. They had long, slender fingers. They could afford to buy it. They might have been attracted to glittery, shiny objects. So I don't think it's just a coincidence. And I've looked at the psychic sorts of studies that have been done with twins.

And I think that there are better explanations for that grounded in their genetic identity. I really believe that you're right that we do hear sometimes about one twin who's worried about the other and the other one's lying dead in the street. but there are many times when there are misses. And if you worry about your twin all the time, and you say, I know that phone call us from them, I mean, if they call you 10 times a day, it's not a big deal. Odds, ours, you're going to hit it at some point. I don't know.

I mean, there is the quantum entanglement thing that word, remember, that I used, that I have with certain people in my family, like my mom, I will have not spoken to her for a week, and all of a sudden, the phone will ring. No, I will think before the phone rings, I know mom's calling me. And it's not even like a thought that I'm consciously creating. It just comes, like, mom's going to call and the phone will ring.

Like, that's happened to me multiple times. And it's not. The way I would look at that is that you haven't heard from your mom, probably thinking about her. It's time that she called. Right, except I do believe in the quantum, I do believe that there are certain sort of things out there that we haven't quite that they're researching about quantum entanglement.

Yeah, I mean, being a doctor, having seen these twins, especially in this world, identical twins, who seemingly have a connection beyond what two regular people might not have, how do you square that? I mean, do you have some mysticism or are you like straight-sum? Not at all. I'm completely scientific in this respect. And I just think that anything is possible. We have to stay open to any kind of new evidence. I'm willing to be persuaded. But I just see that if the genes behind the behaviors, we know so much about our behavior has a genetic component to it, not entirely, but a genetic one that's substantial. And I just look at it that way. And identical twins are not exactly the same either. I mean, there are lots of variations. It's just that they're more like than any other pair of people. That's my take on that. What about the, like, sets of twins that have been swapped?

There's, like, the story of, you know, them being swapped at birth and then rediscovering... Right. Or adopted separately. Right. Yes. Now, I wrote about that in my sixth book, Accidental Brothers, those Colombian twins. And this was an amazing situation of two identical male pairs born a day apart, one in the lively capital city of Bogota, Columbia. and the other in a little rural village with no running water and a three, three-walled house up in the north.

And one of the little boys up north was so sick. So we had to come down to the better hospital in Bogota, and he was there for a week. And while he was there, he was accidentally switched with one of the other twins. So the wrong baby was brought back, and the wrong baby stayed in Bogota. So they grew up as two sets of unrelated brothers thinking they were fraternal twins. And then it came to light when they were 25, when the boys up north moved to Bogota to work and somebody confused somebody for the other and eventually the truth came out. But as I always remember one of the twins saying to me, I went on the computer and I saw

myself in clothes I didn't own and in a place I've never been. And next to me was my fraternal twin brother where in clothes he doesn't own in a place he's never been. And he said he just freaked out. So when I heard this story, I knew I was going to Bogota. I was on the next plane literally and went twice to Columbia to study them. It was an amazing case. But I'll tell you, twins are such amazing cases. You know, the book I just did deliberately divided.

I mean, that I think is a very sad commentary on people who manipulate the lives of others and don't allow twinship to be an important celebrated relationship, which it is. How so? Expand on that, though. How is it not celebrated and how is that sort of curtailed? Well, no, twin relationships are very highly valued. They are. And so what these investigators did in my book, Deliberally Divided, was that they were at an adoption agency, the Louise Wise Adoption agency. And young unwed mothers in the 60s would come and they would give up their babies for adoption. And the... agency consultant felt the twins were better off growing up apart. She claimed the developmental literature justified that, but there was no such developmental literature I've looked. And so they were adopted into different families,

and the parents were never told that they were raising part of a twin. So the twins never knew, the families never knew, but these children were tracked secretly for 12 years. The triplets were part of that study, as were, let's see, the triplets, and then four other sets of identical twins. So a total of 11 children. Now, when I say secretly tracked, the parents were told that the children were in a developmental

study of adoption, but they were never told the true purpose, which was a nature, nurture study using identical twins separated birth. The agency also separated a number of sets of fraternal twins, and it's unclear why they did because, you know, these twins don't go through that differentiation process the way identicals do. but they were kept apart and they weren't studied, which also was very bad science because you need the fraternal twin control. So that was a problem.

But anyway, this all came to light, you know, when the triplets met. You know, you saw that wonderful reenactment and three identical strangers. And then more pairs began to surface and that's what happened. On like a scale of one to ten, right? How much, how excited is a twin to actually meet their other twin? or do you find there's trepidation? Like, that's like how you would be.

Oh, yeah. Like, I don't have too many problems in my life. I don't need another one. It's unlikely you're a twin, believe me. So I would say on a scale of one to ten, Kate, it's probably a ten in terms of the excitement. But is there trepidation? Of course there is because you worry,

is he or she going to be better looking than me or jealous of me or want something? But what some of these twins said was that The two, I'll tell you one example, Melanie and Ellen. So Melanie and Ellen met in their late 20s, and both of them were very shy and reserved, and they both dropped out of college after a semester. And they realized that had they been together, they probably could have withstood the pressure of college together. They would have been a support system. So these twins were denied this wonderful relationship growing up together.

And those two have had some bumps along the way. triples, of course, did as well. You know, when Bobby walked away from the restaurant, that was difficult and leaving Eddie and David there to manage the restaurant alone, that was a big blow to Eddie. And then there were other pairs where there's a wonderful fraternal pair, Allison and Michelle, who got along just beautifully. And then sadly, Michelle died just last June, so they only had less than three years together. And it was a wonderful two and a half.

years that they had. But, you know, to have been denied this all your life and then to have it and to lose it again, it was just so selfish and so unthinking. And these were child development experts who were doing this. And they should have known better. It's really great. It was blind scientific ambition. They were hoping, they were hoping to settle the nature and nurture question for good. And that's what drove that. But about that, actually, when you are not who, not not twins who have been separated, identical twins especially, but when you do have that kind of a trauma on your life or one of them might pass unexpectedly,

I mean, it's got to be, you know, just double the pain in a sense. There's a part of you that is died, that is gone. It's devastating. You know, at the University of Minnesota, when we studied twins, we had this pair of identical firemen. They met when they were in their 30s, both 6'4, got along absolutely perfectly, beer drinking, you know, love to eat a place called Luigi's.

Oh, they were just exactly the same. And then one of them passed away just Saturday of last week, I think it was, at the age of 67. And their brothers had been estranged for various reasons. But the one who survived, posted a note on Facebook and said, for 67 years, there were two of me walking around, and now there's only one, rest in peace. So even though there was an estrangement, there was some kind of an attachment and a feeling and an emotional involvement that ran very deeply. So, yeah, I have a study, actually, of nearly 800 twins whose twins have passed away.

And I can tell you it is just devastating for them. Absolutely devastating. You think even more so than, I mean, it's hard to quantify that. I was just to say, it must be. But it's hard to quantify that. But even more so than sort of a regular sort of sibling couple, I guess. I'll tell you how I quantify it. So what I do is I have them rate the grief intensity for the twins.

and rate the grief intensity for other people who've died in their lifetime, like a brother, a mother, a father, an aunt, uncle. And the twin usually comes out ahead, regardless of identical or fraternal, but usually very high with identicals. But see, they have a different starting point. For people who are not twins, it could be that a mother or a father is more important than a sibling. You know what I mean?

The twins have this very, very high point that they're beginning from. So I think that's the difference. It makes sense. I mean, you know, it, no matter what, like, it's not a matter of love. It's literally almost like a, it's, I mean, like, imagine you had looked at yourself every day when you, like, face-timed your sister or your brother. And it was like, that was your bro. Like, it was you. It's got to be so interesting, though.

It's so weird. Because I think you and I would look at each other and be like, well, if you were, I was a girl. and it's like, oh, we look the same. But that novelty goes away quickly, I would think, or you're born maybe with even out the novelty of that. That was really fascinating. Or are you like, you look great. Like, I guess I look great because you look great.

Let me comment on that. First of all, identical twins often don't think they look alike, which I find extraordinary. I don't know how they can't think that. But the other thing that I noticed that was so amazing is that in Minnesota, sometimes the twins would be of different weight. So there was one pair of very attractive women.

Yeah, so very attractive, but one was 10 pounds heavier than the other. And the one who was slimmer looked at her heavier sister and said, I mean, she looks great. And I'm always worried about my weight. And even 10 pounds heavier, I look fine. So twins are the unique position of seeing themselves in ways that we never can. We can look at a mirror. But we can't see ourselves as a person in 3D moving around in space. So we never really know what we look like.

It's impossible. Only twins can. That's so wild. It's true because it's like sometimes I'll, it's like you have a skewed way of listening to your voice, hearing your voice. You hear it and then you actually hear it back and you're like, I don't sound anything like I think I sound. Same thing with your face.

You're like, look. You're like, yeah, I look, I look good. Then like someone takes a video and you're like, oh. Mm-hmm. I'm like so like from a different perspective. Like, I'm not seeing myself like that. But if you actually had an identical twin, you would, you probably judge yourself harsh, more harshly. You might, you might.

Yeah. I'd be like, do I look like that? I think you might. Except in this case, she thought her twin look great. So, who knows? I'm always really intrigued by, like, I've heard stories that twins have the same dreams. Have you ever heard stories like that? Yes, I sure have.

And it's not surprising to me at all because they go through many of the same experiences together. They had similar thoughts, similar thought processes. So it's not surprising to me at all. I don't think that one sends her dreams to the other one's head. I don't think that at all. But I do think that because they interpret the world in similar ways and think a lot about things in the same ways, I mean, these twins raised apart, both in deliberately divided and the ones that I studied in Minnesota, I'm always amazed when I hear these similar kinds of reflections.

that both were shy or both were outgoing or both worried about this or that. I mean, it's really amazing, actually. And when you look at their homes, there's a lot of similarity. You know, this is something that I think people will be interested in. If you think about how your homes are decorated, you know, you often think that's just a purely environmental thing. But actually, a home is a reflection of you. You choose to put this there.

You choose to put that there or the color scheme. So it's not that it's just the house happens to be there. you've designed it a certain sort of a way. And so there's really a genetic influence on environmental factors. I think that's something people don't often think about. I mean, how often do you see twins, and I guess we're just talking about identical so much because there's such a genetic connection there,

but how often do you see identical twins where one is like a buttoned-up goody two shoes and the other one is like, you know, out there, like doing Coke and raging and out of the like, ah! You know, I mean, how often do you see that discrepancy? You see it. You see it very rarely. You see it, but it's rare. I knew a pair of twins where one was an ordinary normal housewife, no big deal. And it's just, it was a murderer. Whoa. Yeah. I mean, these things happen, and maybe it was something that happened prenatally to affect the brain. You know, our environments and not just what we experience in life, but a lot goes on in the womb. With identical twins, there can be shared circulations and fetal crowding and all kinds of things.

your brain cells turn on or turn off. So there can be different sorts of things. We have, I've studied several sets of identical twin women where one at an early age felt like she was trapped in a man's body and eventually did sex reassignment surgery. Those are amazing cases. Absolutely amazing cases. I was on the Oprah Winfrey show once with two sets of twins like that. And I have to say in all the years I've seen Oprah, I never saw her speechless. Until this one day. I mean, it was just really, really difficult. Ollie, we love our Sakara.

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I just love the can. I love the silver bullet. You know what I mean? Yeah. Part of drinking a Coors Light is the aesthetic of it. You know, you've got to feel good. And when I have that silver can with the cold, ice, blue mountains, when I know it's freezing to death, it's when I feel my best.

So when I need to take a second for myself and Kate, I can be speaking for her as well. I'm going to say we. So when we need to take a second for ourselves, we reach for the beer that is made to chill. So get to Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. by going to CoorsLight.com slash Hudson. Celebrate Responsive to the Coors Perot Company called in Colorado. You know, what's also interesting are male-female twins

because we find that the females often tend to be more outgoing, more assertive, somewhat masculinized, perhaps, by exposure to the male hormone in utero. And, you know, we've known for years that females tend to be, be a little maternal towards their twin brothers, you know, tend to boss them around. Partly, it's because females mature ahead of males anyway, intellectually, physically, socially. And yet, you know, you can't discount the hormonal influence, but the problem is it's confounded because, you know, when you're a male-female twin, you're growing up together, but you also have the hormonal exposure.

So you've got to figure out a way to separate those out. That's really interesting. Yeah. How's your relationship with your twin? Well, my relationship with my twin is great now. We're adults and we're pretty close. But growing up, we were like ships passing in the night. We had separate sets of friends, even though we shared a bedroom, had same parents and experiences,

but we went to different classes, which was better for us, too. And then even different schools beginning in the seventh grade. Wow. And we discussed things. And we know that, well, we're pretty sure we know that if we'd met socially, we never would have been friends because we're so different. But because we're siblings, you know, we have a family history. We know each other so well. And I love her and I trust her. You know, when my parents passed away, she took care of all the bank stuff. And I never once

for a second ever thought she'd cheat me. I mean, I know siblings worry about those things. I never did. She's a wonderful, wonderful person. But we're just, we're just not, we don't have that typical identical to talk to you about. We don't. No, you don't. genes reshuffle in every generation. Explain this to me. What does that mean, you know? Okay. Yeah, that's a good question.

So all of us have 46 genes, 46, well, 46 chromosomes, and we have tons and tons and tons of genes. So it's 23 pairs. I get one pair from mom and one pair from dad. when I reproduce, the egg that I will contribute has only one copy of each of my, of each of the chromosomes. So, you know, it could be, I get this chromosome from mom, this chromosome from dad goes into the fertilized egg. So it's a completely unique constellation of genes and chromosomes. And so when it, when it merges with the sperm and the sperm goes through that same process, It's all different.

It's all different. You know, if we all reproduced ourselves, I mean, there'd be no variability in the population. We probably all die. But you need that genetic variability to keep the human species going. But how are twins, from a genetic standpoint, how are twins hereditary, meaning? Oh, yeah.

Like, how does that work? If you have twins and your family, you're more likely to have a twin. Yeah, it's a great question. And you have to answer it differently for identicals and fraternals. Now, let's talk about fraternal first because they're easy. So fraternal twins, It's probably a hormonal underpinning, mostly in the part of the mother, although we can't discount a contribution from the father.

It could be that something the father transmits, alters, the intrauterine landscape, and another egg is released. But we do know that these factors affect fraternal twinning. It runs in your family. It tends to come from the mother's side. Women who have fraternal twins tend to be taller and heavier on average, and they tend to be of African descent. is a higher proportion of fraternal twins in African populations. Now, with identical twinning, it was thought for years that this was totally random, that anybody could have them,

and it didn't matter that you had them in your family. But now new studies have shown that there may be a subset of families where identical twinning is genetically passed on. When I was in Brazil, there was a family down in the south. There's many families in the very southern tip of Brazil, and they have a very high concentration of identical twins. In fact, in one family, they went five generations. There's a pocket of many identical twins in India and another pocket in Iran.

So they're getting close to finding a certain gene that maybe is conducive to splitting of the fertilized egg. Now, think about, this is an amazing case. I studied in Canada. There's a mother who conceived fraternal twins naturally, so she had two fertilized. eggs in there, but they both split. So she had two sets of identical twin boys. Whoa. And they were

completely different, you know, between pairs, but within pairs exactly the same. Wait, wait, wait, wait, she had four babies. In one pregnancy. I mean, yes, four babies and one pregnancy, because each of her fraternal twin embryos divided, right? So she

had four, she had quadruples. But two looked alike, but two looked alike and two looked alike. You got it, exactly. She had fraternal twins and then... Right, so there's four kids and two were identical, two are identical. What would you do if that happened? Could you imagine...

I'd run. Could you imagine showing up to the doctor's office and being like, oh, I'm pregnant, you know? I'm like, what? Like four? Like a litter. It's a litter. You have a litter. At first I thought it was just three, but one baby was hiding.

So it was four. So, I mean, this mother welcomed them in. I mean, you can just laugh and what can you do about it? Yeah, you can do. Get ready. But the point is that it makes you think, are identical and fraternal twinning processes, are they independent? I mean, here's a mother who had fraternals and identicals.

So it may be that these things kind of come together in some families. We also know that older mothers have a higher chance of having fraternal twins. So it begins about age 35. And you could think about it as kind of a reproductive mistake because the human, womb is designed to carry one baby. But if you think about it in an evolutionary term, it's kind of a cost-benefit analysis because the older you are when you have a baby,

the higher the chance of a defective baby, right? Down syndrome is higher among older women. But it's also that, hey, it's my last chance to get my jeans out there. So let's try for two. Right. Well, that's a good question, actually. Let's go back to early man.

I mean, have you gone that far back? twins, you know, back when we were just becoming human? In fact, God, I just looked at this article in an archaeological review, and they found these twin mummies that were buried together. I can't remember how far back it goes, but there was definitely twinning, you know, throughout human history. Definitely was. It could be that, of course, the twin frequency has increased because we know more about

how to manage multiple pregnancies. and things of that sort. With IVF, it's shooting way up. But nevertheless, there were twins all throughout human history. Yeah, absolutely. What about identical twins marrying identical twins? Oh, one of my favorite subjects.

I have studied that. I definitely have. Really? What haven't you studied? Well, I feel like you've studied me and I don't even know it. You never know. You never know.

Yeah, let's tell the identical marriage I want to know. So when identical twins marry, it's extraordinary because they're children, are not just first cousins, but they're full siblings genetically speaking because the parents are all genetically interchangeable. So a lot of them, a lot of twins don't want to marry just non-twinns because non-twins often don't understand the special relationship. So they think, keep it in the family, it's all married twins. And they go to those Twinsburg festivals in, in Twinsburg, Ohio, every August. And sometimes they go there to meet twins. So these one twins, I know,

Mark and Craig, they went, and they happened to meet Diane and Darlene. And Mark, or rather, Craig claims that he could only marry Diane, and Darlene was not the least but attractive to him, and the same went the other way. And I find that extraordinary, because I often thought, well, it doesn't matter who you marry, it's all the same. But I'm learning that very subtle differences in behavior or appearance have huge consequences for who you marry. Absolutely huge.

some women I know who married one identical twin will say I love my husband but I mean I like my brother-in-law but I could never marry him and that is so interesting I think if we study twins we could learn a lot

about what causes made attraction why you are attracted to one person and not to another these are fascinating findings has that study been you know sort of expanded on because that's an amazing because to have like a sibling who's identical.

Identical. And you're like, I am not feeling you. And you're like... But you are hot. Yeah. That's crazy. It is. Yeah, it's really fascinating. And, you know, there was a one family I found where the two moms had given birth

on the same day. So the children were really like fraternal twins, even though they weren't, but they were kind of like equivalence. So, you know, just by doing everything naturally, if twins just marry and have kids, it creates all kinds of fascinating research situations that we can take advantage of. I love it. No wonder. Now I'm understanding why you have dedicated your life to this.

I mean, it is extremely fascinating and can be really eye-opening to not just twins, but having studied twins and it's just about humanity and the way we attract. That is the whole point that you can study twins at two levels. You can study twins for twins, you know, should you separate them in schools, to dress them alike, this or them. But twins are really a research model for understanding why we all are the way that we are. It's implications for how we behave. I feel like what if there was a set of identical twins that were together that just decided we all love each other?

Like we're just married. We're like married. Like, you know, because if you think about it, I mean, then there's the opposite, which is like if you're, like, if you're, like, if you're, you know, then there's the opposite, which is like, if, you fall in love with it. This is maybe another interesting, like, if you fall in love with one, like, how could you not, not be in love with the other one? Right. Instead of, they're like twingers.

Yeah. Well, I know. This conversation can really go to new depths, I'm sure. Twingers. Yeah, I would love to do that study. There's so many studies I still want to do. I still want to do the study I just mentioned to look at made attraction in identical twins who marry identical.

twins. I would love to study the different life experiences of biracial twins, you know, one who may look more black and one who may look more white in a basically white community or a black community. I would love to study those. And I think there's enough cases to do that. I have a study I just completed on the caring and investment of identical twin aunts toward their nieces and nephews because they're essentially at their own genetic children, right? Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, so identical twins marry and have kids. They marry ordinary people, not twins. The kids are first cousins.

Right. From 2000, okay. But twin A is the genetic aunt or uncle to her nieces and nephews, right? She's the aunt or uncle. But she's also the genetic mother or father because she and her sister or brother genetically interchangeable. Oh, right. Okay, that's so interesting. Okay.

That would be like if we were identical twins. I would be Ryder's dad or whatever. You would share a different kind of genetic relationship with Ryder than you do. Yes, exactly. And I, wow, that's trippy. Isn't that what? That's really interesting because I'm just putting myself there, right? I can actually relate to that, even though that's like if I shared that with you,

how I would feel even more intensely about your kids. That's what the research showed, that the identical twin and synonymous. uncles were more closely involved and caring and thought the kid was like their kid, as opposed to the fraternal ones. And so what I want to do now, if I have the time, because I'm working on two new books at the moment, but when I have time, I want to get it from the kid's perspective. How do you feel towards your mother or your father and your aunt or uncle if they're twins? And if the mother and father are identical versus if they're fraternal. So I want to go not from parent to kid, but I want to go from kid to parent.

I think that would be a fascinating study. There's so many questions. I mean, even in like, if they're doing the same job and one is advancing and the other one is not, you know, but they're the exact same person. Or what about movie stars? Right. What if, what if, like, Liam Hemsworth had an identical twin, and they were both actors, but Liam, like, became the Marvel Thor guy.

And the other one's like, what happened to me? Well, look at, look at Rami, you know, Romney Emmanuel. Oh, yeah, that's right. Mommy has a, that's right. And his brother is an education, I think. But he's not an actor, though. Yeah, he's an education. Yeah.

That's what he does. And yet they seem perfectly happy doing it. I feel like you just project your own feeling into it. I don't care. I don't care if I do. What was his twin? What if his twin was an actor? And he was like kind of not doing it.

Well, that would suck for the twin, I guess. It's possible. Some twins feel that way. But, you know, think about it. I feel like it wouldn't be dissimilar. it wouldn't be distant. Or they could like, they could like be like, dude, can you take

I got, you could like, they could work as a team. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of that. Yeah, there's a lot of team work. Yeah, like the Olson twins. Yeah, like the Olson twins. Do you know, that where you're sort of like, I'm just fucking exhausted. Like, will you take over next week on filming? Right. Right. Right.

Perfect. Yeah, well, you know, the former mayor of El Paso the two Mexican identical twin politicians, Julian Castro and his brother, Julian, and the Castro brothers. When was the mayor of El Paso for a while? And one day he couldn't be at a parade. It was brother substituted. Of course, they got a lot of guff when they found out.

That's really funny. Of course. I think I personally probably would do that all the time. Both an advantage. What is this statistic? The twinning rates in U.S. rose drastically from 18.9 per thousand births in 1980 to 33.3.3 twins per thousand birth in 2017. And this is the IV. This is due to IVF. It's largely due to IVF. It's also largely due to the fact that women are delaying the childbearing years to have education and careers. And so the older mothers have a higher chance of fraternal twinning. But it's also somewhat due to better hospitalization practices and the fact that when you do IVF, it also increases the rate of identical twinning, not as dramatically, but the way it works is that when you're micromanipulating an egg in the laboratory, you know, you're doing things to it and you increase the chance of splitting. So there's a slight but consistent increase of identical twinning. Now, those are the most, those are the penultimate stats you just cited Kate. The more recent one that came after that shows a slight decline in the paternal 20 to maybe 1 and 32, something like that.

And that's because in the past, doctors used to implant multiple embryos so that at least one would take. But now they're better able to implant one to guarantee success. Ollie, do you identify as Cryptocurious? Yeah, of course. I thought so. Yeah, I do. I do. I'm crypto curious without a doubt.

Without a doubt. I think about entering the world of crypto all the time. I may or may not have some of my funds wrapped up and some cryptocurrency. And I do use Coinbase. Great. Well, Coinbase makes learning to buy and sell simple. It's super easy to buy and sell and use. And they teach you.

There's learning resources. There's a mobile app. They give you a really trusted, easy-to-use platform to buy-sell and spend cryptocurrency. So it's a great place to learn. And I say this because I think it's really important that, you know, try it. You know, if you want, you know, use a little bit, you don't have to go crazy. But to start to understand the language, Coinbase is a great, it's a great place to start.

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Bitcoin. This offer is for a limited time only. So be sure to sign up today. That's coinbase.com slash sibling. I actually study a kind of kinship that's sort of interesting. I call them virtual twins. And virtual twins are same age, unrelated children raised together. So maybe an infertile couple, they adopt two children at the same time who are completely unrelated, but they're the same age. so they grew up very twin-like. And sometimes, so sometimes what happens is that the mother does get pregnant, but meanwhile, she's starting the adoption process.

So she's got a biological kid and an adopted one, but they're unrelated. And they grow up like twins because they're the same age. And they're very fascinating. They're nothing alike, despite growing up so close together. What about the sort of Irish twin, you know, where you're under 11 months, you know, where you have the baby and then you get pregnant ready? I have a friend who has had that happen to her. And does that, do they kind of grow up more like twins?

Some probably do and some probably don't. Right. What about DNA? What if I have a twin and I kill somebody and I'm, and my other twin gets accused of the crime? Well, that used to happen. But it doesn't now because of what we call epigenetic factors, which is a turning on and turning off of genes.

And aside from that, we have these random. what are called somatic mutations where a gene may change. And so your set of epigenetic markers and gene changes might be different than your twins. So now they could find out what it was. Here's an interesting one. So there have been a couple of cases I've come across

where both identical twins have intercourse with a woman and she gets pregnant. Who's the father? In the old days, you couldn't tell. And judges couldn't even assign, you know, support. But now you can. Now you can.

Wow. Are there any crazy murder sort of DNA twin, identical twin cases? Well, there's a book I have about twins who were just both murderers like the cray twins, you know, from England. And, I mean, there are twins who work like that together and do terrible things. But, you know, it's sensational and it's very atypical, very typical, yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about your book, you know, deliberately divided. So what made that, you know, this is your seventh book, right? Yes, correct.

Wow, you're prolific. And then you're working on two more. Yeah. So why was this a natural progression for your seventh book? Okay. So three identical strangers came out, the movie in 2018. In 2017, there was a movie called The Twinning Reaction made by a much more independent filmmaker. which didn't get the attention it deserved, but it was terrific.

Anyway, I'd always known about this particular story. I learned about it in the 80s when I was first at Minnesota, and I was rather intrigued by it, but also horrified by it, because it was a study of, I mean, I would never separate twins. My job was to bring twins together, not to separate them. So I always kept track of it. I actually met Peter Newbauer, the main investigator. I met him once, and I spoke to many, many people.

Anyway, when the movie came out, the woman who had done the independent film said to me, look, I have mountains of material. You should write the book. And I had a sabbatical coming up. So I thought about it and I knew that it was going to be a difficult book to write. I knew because it was going to be controversial. And I knew that the investigators had a lot of defenders. And so I thought a lot about it. And then I thought, I'm going to do it because it has to be done. It's a blemish in the history of twin studies, and I'm going to have to do it. Also, the data records they had were sealed completely at Yale University's archives, and the twins are having a really difficult time getting them. So I thought if I did this book, maybe that would help open up the records. So I decided to do it, and for all those reasons, because to help the twins to call attention to this, to really let people know what went on behind that film. There was a lot more than you can put into a 90-minute film. So that was the reason I did it. And, you know, with my background and twins raised apart, my background in twinship anyway, that's what I did. And I not only went through

who was separated and why, I went through the lives of the investigators, the lives of the families, I looked at the media's attempt, 60 minutes, tried many times to expose this, and they never was successful. I looked at the ethics involved in this and the failed attempts of publication. And then at the very end, I saved that for my own, unbiased, completely unbiased. I went on the data, but my own views on this particular study. Now, can you talk about the gym twins, for those who don't know, they were separated until they met when they were 40, right? 39. 39. The gym twins were separated at birth, and they were the first study to launch, the first pair

of twins to launch the Minnesota study of twins raised apart. So the gym twins were these two gentlemen who grew up apart in Ohio, different cities, 40 miles apart or so. And each parent was told that the other one had a twin, but the twin had died at birth. When one of the mothers went to the courthouse when her child was five, the clerk said to the mother, interesting, the other child was also named Jim. And so she pursued it and realized that he was still alive. When her son was older, she said, look, you know, you've got an identical twin out there, but he wasn't ready to find him. And when he was at the age of 39, they met. And their story was covered in papers around the world. They had so many similarities. They both used to scatter love letters around the house for

their wives. They both bit their nails. They both smoked saloms. They both drove light blue Pontiacs. They both vacation in the same Florida strip of beach. They both married women named Betty divorced them and married Linda. They both named their sons James Allen. They both had mixed headache syndrome that they described as someone banging your head with a hammer. They both were woodworkers, and they both were part-time sheriffs, and both worked part-time in McDonald's.

So they had lots and lots of similarities. And so Professor Bouchard, who was the director of the study, decided to bring them to the university, put them through an assessment battery, and published it maybe as a case study. I was not in Minnesota at the time. I was still at the University of Chicago getting my degree. Anyway, the gym twins attracted so much attention that other pairs began to contact Minnesota so that following year I went there as a postdoc and worked exclusively on the study and more and more twins were coming to be studied. So we ended up with a total of 137 pairs, 81 identical and 56 fraternal. I know the gym twins, I knew them.

Both gym twins have passed away and I've been in touch with one of the wives from time to time. But they are, you know, kind of the quintessential reared apart pair of twins because they were so similar. They really were. But those examples, I mean, that's crazy from... On another level. Well, scientifically, how are we...

I know you've kind of touched on it, but from a scientific place, How are we squaring that? Yeah, well, the mixed headache syndrome, you could understand something biological. But let's think about... Marrying Linda, then divorce is like crazy. I mean, names of wives are rather difficult, and that could be just a matter of chance. But maybe you're attracted to somebody with a certain name. Now, naming their sons, James Allen, obviously that's a function of husband and wife, what you name a child.

But it could be that most twins, most of them were traditional. So you name the firstborn son after the father. And maybe Alan was a name they liked. It goes well with James. But see, what's beautiful about Reard Apart Twins is that it gives you new ways of thinking about ordinary observations. You know, for example, all of us have quirks. You know, sometimes you take a necklace and you twirl around your neck or you do something with your head or God knows what you do. But we all do this thing.

And we all assume these are just kind of random things. but maybe they're not. You know, maybe we sit a certain way because we're more comfortable that way because our bodies are put together. And if we had a twin, they'd be sitting exactly the same way. And we see in unposed photographs, I have a bunch of these in one of my books

where the twins are just told to stand and they stand the same way. They both slouch or they both hold their hands a certain way because they're comfortable. I just... Is there any other studies with animals? that are similar? Yes, there are.

Are there identical twins in other species? Of course. And so, I mean, I know that there's, but like, are there any studies done in like, you know, animals that have more similarities to humans? Well, the studies that have, there are studies that have been done using chimpanzees, but there are very, very few chimpanzees.

they don't they don't do well but there have been studies done with identical mice and they do find that you know the mice are similar but certain environmental things can make them different there was a very interesting study done on lambs now these are fraternal twins so to speak they're not genetically the same but this mom this mother lamb gave birth to fraternal twins and they took one lamb away and raised it somewhere else and they find that the mother you know, when she goes and she smells them and licks them. I mean, she could identify her child. So to that degree, relative identification has been studied a lot in other animals, Kate.

But in chimpanzees, they, twins don't do well. No, they don't survive. They rarely survive. I have a, in one of my, in my first book, I actually have a chart of all the chimpanzees that did survive. Jane Goodall actually had a pair called Guyron Gimble. Really? And they didn't survive.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to like, you know, alien type stuff. Like, like, extraterrestrial. Yeah, what about cloned animals? Well, yeah, cloned animals would be fabulous to study.

The thing is that you can, I mean, the clones are generally the same, but you'd have to make sure the conditions would be the same. Now, I think human cloning is also a fascinating topic, and I thought a lot about that. human reproductive cloning. I have no problem with it. Really? Yes. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you why.

Because think about it, let's suppose we could do it. We can't, and it's not ethical, but suppose we could. Okay. Most people would not have children that way. Most people would still want children the old-fashioned way. So it would be like a last-ditch effort to have a biological child. Also, the child would come into the world at a different, time. So if you had a certain talent, your child might have the predisposition, but maybe that

talent is not valued in that particular generation. So it would not be, you know, exactly the same. On the other hand, it could be that you have a certain understanding as a parent and give your child more understanding than, you know, if you weren't a clone to clone yourself and raise them as your child. Yeah. You could. I mean, if we had a technology. That's just like so deeply narcissistic to me. That just feels like insane. I smell a sitcom. It could be. There's like 500 sitcoms in this episode. Yeah.

I mean, it could be narcissistic to some degree. But, you know, in any new scientific technology, science moves forward. And we try to anticipate the problems it's going to raise. We can't anticipate everything. So it could be that, let's suppose you're a Holocaust survivor and all your family's wiped out, but you want to carry on the family line, maybe human cloning is the only real. available to you. So that's, you know, but again, you know, it's interesting that that women who are 65, 70,

they could have children if they wanted. You just take eggs and implant them in the uterus. But you don't see that happening because women who are 65 and 70s don't want to be moms. Yeah, you're like, I don't want to, I don't even want to carry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. So my point is that even if we could do human reproductive cloning, not if everybody's going to

race out to do it. I think very few people would. That's my guess. Question. Here we go. For the expert, let's say you decide to take out your eggs, pick what you want, get all the genetic testing done, put that egg back into your body. Can that egg split? Or is it all? Why not? Right. So even though it's already been fertilized outside. of the womb, if it's replanted into the womb, can it split and become an identical? Yeah, I think it could. And the reason I say that is because the window of opportunity for dividing is the 14th day.

And so most embryos are planted, implanted between three and five days. So there's a whole other week for that. I wonder if you could split outside and put in. I can give you, yeah, I can, well, that would be a little bit unethical. But here, here is an example. You've heard of optimum, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So Octamomom gave birth to, what, 14 children, right? I think it was. But she only had, it was not 14 embryos implanted. It was not. But I think it was 10. But two of those split. So she had identical, two sets of identical twins when the babies were born. Yeah. So that's answered your question. Right. Okay.

Jesus. And then she did a porno. She did. You know that she went to my university? Oh, really? Yeah, Cal State Foote. Yeah, Cal State Folleton. I never knew her here, but she went here for a while. What about this idea, and then I'll let you go, because I've just so many, it's just like so fascinating. But real quickly, like the identicals who don't know that they have one.

I mean, I can't imagine if I'm walking down Santa Monica Boulevard and I see myself, I'd have like a back-to-the-future moment where I just all of a sudden time and space changes and I might faint or throw up or something might happen. I mean, that has those stories. Must exist where you are looking in a mirror and don't even realize you have a twin until then. There's one story where a pair of rear-de-apar twins met that way. Most of the time, it's confusion by other people. But there were these Scottish ladies who grew up close together in Scotland, but they were different sides of the family.

Anyway, they were 66, and one of them was working in a church. And the other one came to visit the church and knocked on the door. and nobody answered it but then when the woman opened the door they came out to this little garden and they recognized each other right away now they both knew they had a twin they knew this all their lives but nevertheless they weren't prepared for this

so that's the only case we have where you recognize yourself now in my book deliberately divided I have this amazing case of this guy Justin Goldberg who's a music producer who lives in Los Angeles and he was adopted from Louise Wise

in 1964. So he was right in that period where they were separating twins. And his daughter was at the farmer's market. And she saw what she was positive was her dad's look-alike. And she videotaped it. And it's the most amazing photograph. If you look in the book, you'll see Justin and you'll see this look-alike. And they tried hard to find him. But eventually he was in touch with his biological mother who said that you were not a twin. But because the look-alike and because of this Louise Wise Adoption service connection. That case was very, very significant. I dashed out to his house with ABC 2020 to do a piece on that.

Yeah, that was great. So, okay, so let's, first of all, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us about all of this. But let's end with two things. One, I'd love to know what for you, I mean, I know it's probably hard to decipher what this would be, but the most surprising thing you've come across in your research

that you really was the most unexpected. And then I guess the last question would be, what are you looking forward to next with your research and your book? Yeah. So I think that the most important finding from the research is that living together does not make you alike. That if family members live together,

it's the genes that make them alike and not the concept. common environment. In terms of a pair of twins that I think are the most spectacular, it has to be Oscar and Jack. Oscar was raised Jewish by his father in Trinidad. I'm sorry, Jack was raised Jewish by his father in Trinidad, and Oscar was raised Catholic by his mother in Nazi Germany. And he was never a Nazi, but he did go to the Hitler youth and the war was over by the time he was 12. When they met in their 40s, they knew that if their positions had been reversed, they would have embraced the philosophy of the other. And currently, it was a philosophy that they both completely loathed and

rejected. Oscar rejected Jackson, Jacks rejected Oscars. But they know that if they've been reversed, they would have been inculcated in the culture of their country at that particular point in time. I find that absolutely extraordinary. Now, what I'm working on at the moment, I'm working on two books, right now. One of them has the working title of border crossings, and it's going to be an in-depth study of a family from Los Angeles that made national and international headlines over the last four years. It is a gay couple. They met in Israel. One is an Israeli man. He's in his 30s. The other is an American who went there to study in his 40s. They met in Israel. They married in Canada in 2010 because you couldn't marry in the U.S. or in Israel at that time.

And while in Canada, they had fraternal twin boys through a surrogate, and each man was the father of one of the boys. And so it was a wonderful, loving, happy family until they tried to leave Toronto to move to the United States. And because one of the babies had a Canadian mom and an Israeli father, did not have the U.S. parent, they were going to deny him citizenship. So this is a case that almost made it to the Supreme Court. And so it combines twinship, family, marriage laws, immigration laws. I think it's going to be a very rich story. Good.

Another great. Awesome. Idea. I smell of drama. Yeah. Yeah. So I've met some of the family already. Talk to some of them.

I've got a lot of interviews lined up. I'm very excited about that one. That's great. I can't wait to read that one. Awesome. My second book is called The Twin Children of the Holocaust. And this, in 1985, as a Jewish twin myself, I went to Israel and to, first to Poland, Auschwitz, Berkenau, you know, one of the concentration camps.

And that was where Dr. Joseph Mangler had done his horrific experiments on the twins and dwarfs and other people with medical anomalies. And I took extraordinary photographs. I'm not a photographer, but it's amazing what a Nikon camera can do. And so I have probably 100, 150 beautiful photographs. And during COVID, when I was home, I thought that I should publish these. And so I have a contract now to publish about 50 or 60 of them. And it's going to be a photography book, something I've never done before,

with just a little bit of annotation and background, because I want the photographs to speak for themselves. So that's another project I'm very excited about. And I've been in touch with some of those twins. You know, they're 80s and 90s now. They were the twin children at the time. so some of them are still alive, and I've done some interviews with them as well.

That's my other project. Oh, fine. Amazing. Cool. Well, Dr. Siegel, thank you so much for joining us. Pleasure to meet both of you, really. Great to meet you. I look forward to the finished product.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Sibling Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson. Producer is Alison Bresden. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, aka Uncle Mine. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robey and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Books is the official audio book and ebook home for Reese's Book Club. Visit apple.c.O. forward slash Reese Apple Books to find out more. I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues, by talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all. We basically sold our souls, and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, what did you help her? Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, it's Gemma's Begg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s. This September at the Psychology of Your 20s. 20s, we're breaking down the very interesting ways psychology applies to real life, like why we crave external validation. I find it so interesting that we are so quick to believe others' judgments of us and not our own judgment of ourselves. So according to this study, not being liked actually creates similar pain levels as real life physical pain. Learn more about the psychology of everyday life and of course your 20s this September. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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