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Experimenting in the Biosocial: The Strange Case of Twin Research

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The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore how twin research has been used to prove and disprove divisions between biology and environment. The history of using twins in biomedical research has lessons for understanding how human groups interact with scientific endeavours. I consider how twins have their identities transformed by research, and how they seek to adapt to and inform the discrete workings of scientific knowledge production. While experiences of twinning have been linked to the specific uterine quality of their development, or to generalised patterns of psychological relation and co-dependence, little is known about how these conceptions of twin sociality are enhanced, diminished, or negated by their status as clinical labourers within scientific enterprise.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Here I follow Nancy Segal’s definition of ‘twin-born people’ as those who share ‘simultaneous conception, shared prenatal environments, and common birth’ (Segal 2000, 225).

  2. 2.

    Thought to have entered the English language in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (‘a born devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick’ (4.1.188–189)), Galton’s first use of the phrase ‘nature and nurture’ occurred in 1874, a year before he published his work on twins in Fraser’s Magazine in 1875, when expressing interest in the ‘energy, intellect, and the like’ of other fellows of the Royal Institution (Galton 1875b).

  3. 3.

    For a succinct overview of twin research methods and its various attempts to identify numerical values for ‘genes’ or ‘environment’, see Ball and Teo (2008). That twin methods are inextricably tied to efforts to separate, even provisionally, different domains of so-called ‘natural’ or ‘environmental’ influence, may be observed in how behaviour geneticists such as Nancy Segal now regret using the expression ‘nature vs nurture’ to evoke an imagined battle between two opposing entities. But, testimony to how models of conflict between genes and environment have given way to more interactionist models, the old protagonists remain distinct entities, Segal now prefers either ‘Nature-Nurture or Nature and Nurture, because it is widely appreciated that the two effects work together and are separable only in a statistical sense’. Her studies on twins concede interaction on the basis that their statistical separation is (and should be) achieved through twin research (Segal 2012, 96).

  4. 4.

    Described as ‘the biggest UK adult twin registry of 12,000 twins used to study the genetic and environmental aetiology of age related complex traits and diseases’. See http://www.twinsuk.ac.uk/ Accessed 17 May 2016. Information on the activities of TwinsUK has been gathered by my participation (2012–present) and as a Volunteer Advisory Panel member (2014–2015). I conducted clinical visits in March 2012 and March 2016.

  5. 5.

    The TwinsUK website claims that its ‘genome-wide association studies have identified over 400 novel gene loci in over 30 disease areas including osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, melanoma, baldness, and telomere length from TwinsUK data. Current research covers the genetics of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal system, ageing and sight.’ http://www.twinsuk.ac.uk/about-us/ Accessed 2 May 2016.

  6. 6.

    For documentary footage of such competition, see Alexander and Christoffer van Tulleken visit to TwinsUK in the BBC documentary, The Secret Life of Twins (van Tulleken and van Tullekan 2009).

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  1. University of Durham, Durham, UK

    William Viney

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  1. William Viney
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  1. Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Maurizio Meloni

  2. School of Management, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    John Cromby

  3. Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Des Fitzgerald

  4. Department of Anthropology, Laval University, Québec, Canada

    Stephanie Lloyd

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Viney, W. (2018). Experimenting in the Biosocial: The Strange Case of Twin Research. In: Meloni, M., Cromby, J., Fitzgerald, D., Lloyd, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_7

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