Integrated-twins

The reading explains that twins have been traditionally studied in order to verify the amount of influence that genetic and environmental factors may exert on physical and intellectual development of the human beings. However, the professor believes that some of the assumptions introduced in the passage are not reliable.

First of all, the passage argues that the higher similarity between the characteristics of identical twins comparing to fraternal twins is related to the role of genes in making up our personality. The professor casts doubt on this assumption by bringing about the possible dissimilarities between the environments that pairs of different types of twins may experience.

Secondly, the passage indicates that since monozygotic twins share the same genetic codes while the dizygotic ones share half of the codes of each other, similarities between the former's behavior can be ascribed to their genes. However, the professor suggests that this may be due to the different attitudes toward identical twins comparing to the fraternal twins.

She further discusses that identical twins are usually considered as a single unit and thus, they are more perobable to be treated identically than their fraternal peers. For example, it is likely that they are both served with the same type of ice-cream. Therefore, their similar taste might be the result of an environmental factor rather than heredity.