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Society Makes Us Human 67

Down-to-Earth Sociology

Heredity or Environment? The Case of Jack and Oskar, Identical Twins

dentical twins are almost identical in their genetic makeup. would have to be the result of their environment—their differ-
They are the result of one fertilized egg dividing to produce ent social experiences.
Itwo embryos. (Some differences can occur as genetic Not only did Jack and Oskar hold different attitudes to-
codes are copied.) If heredity determines personality—or ward the war, Hitler, and Jews, but their basic orientations to
attitudes, temperament, skills, and intelligence—then life were also different. In their politics, Jack was liberal, while
identical twins should be identical, or almost so, not only in Oskar was more conservative. Jack was a workaholic, while
their looks but also in these characteristics. Oskar enjoyed leisure. And, as you can predict, Jack was
The fascinating case of Jack and Oskar helps us unravel proud of being a Jew. Oskar, who by this time knew that he
this mystery. From their experience, we can see the far- was a Jew, wouldn’t even mention it.
reaching effects of the environment—how social experiences That would seem to settle the matter. But there were
override biology. other things. As children, Jack and Oskar had both excelled
Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr are identical twins. Born in at sports but had difficulty with math. They also had the
1932 to a Roman Catholic mother and a Jewish father, they same rate of speech, and both liked sweet liqueur and spicy
were separated as babies after their foods. Strangely, each flushed the
parents divorced. Jack was reared toilet both before and after using
in Trinidad by his father. There, he it, and they each enjoyed startling
learned loyalty to Jews and hatred people by sneezing in crowded
of Hitler and the Nazis. After the war, elevators.
Jack and his father moved to Israel.
When he was 17, Jack joined a
kibbutz and later served in the For Your Consideration
Israeli army. ↑ Heredity or environment? How
Oskar’s upbringing was a mirror much influence does each have?
image of Jack’s. Oskar was reared The question is far from settled,
in Czechoslovakia by his mother’s but at this point it seems fair to
mother, who was a strict Catholic. conclude that the limits of certain
When Oskar was a toddler, Hitler an- physical and mental abilities are
nexed this area of Czechoslovakia, established by heredity (such as
and Oskar learned to love Hitler and The relative influence of heredity and the environment in ability at sports and aptitude for
to hate Jews. He joined the Hitler human behavior has fascinated and plagued researchers. mathematics), while attitudes are
Youth. Like the Boy Scouts, this orga- Twins intrigue researchers, especially those twins who the result of the environment.
were separated at birth.
nization was designed to instill healthy Basic temperament, though,
living, love of the outdoors, friend- seems to be inherited. Although the answer is still fuzzy,
ships, and patriotism—but this one added loyalty to Hitler and we can put it this way: For some parts of life, the blueprint
hatred for Jews. is drawn by heredity; but even here the environment can
In 1954, the two brothers met. It was a short meeting, and redraw those lines. For other parts, the individual is a blank
Jack had been warned not to tell Oskar that they were Jews. slate, and it is up to the environment to determine what is
Twenty-five years later, in 1979, when they were 47 years old, written on that slate.
social scientists at the University of Minnesota brought them
together again. These researchers figured that because Jack Sources: Based on Begley 1979; Chen 1979; Wright 1995; Segal and
and Oskar had the same genes, any differences they showed Hershberger 2005; Ledger 2009; Johnson et al. 2009; Segal 2011.

all fours. They drank by lapping water, ate grass, tore eagerly at raw meat, and showed
social environment the entire
insensitivity to pain and cold. human environment, including
Why am I even mentioning stories that sound so exaggerated? Consider what hap- interaction with others
pened in 1798. In that year, such a child was found in the forests of Aveyron, France.
“The wild boy of Aveyron,” as he became known, would have been written off as
another folk myth, except that French scientists took the child to a laboratory and stud-
ied him. Like the feral children in the earlier informal reports, this child gave no indica-
tion of feeling the cold. Most startling, though, when he saw a small animal, the boy
would growl, pounce on it, and devour it uncooked. Even today, the scientists’ detailed
reports make fascinating reading (Itard 1962).