blogpost 5: Twins In Our Society

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Twins were considered as half of our lives, for those who have twins, you are thankful to have a person at your side that you can rely on, anytime. A sister/brother, a friend, and sometimes enemies. But they also believe that twins restored happiness, health and prosperity. However they can also bring us disaster, disease and death. They are still need to be treated with respect.

I found article an entitled “Twins in Yoruba Society” by Fernand Leroy, it states that twins were considered of prenatural origin and raised emotional reactions from fear and repugnanceto hope and joy. Yoruba Culture used to reject a sacrifice newborn twins, they are also not accept but welcomed their birth, being an occasion of great, rejoicing. The first born twin is called Taiwo, meaning ‘having the first taste of the world’, where the second is named Kahinde, meaning ‘arriving after the other’. Kahinde must be careful, more intelligent and more reflective. While Taiwo is more curious and adventurous, but also nonchalant. As the Yuroba believe that twins share the same combined souls, when a newborn twin dies, the life of the other is imperiled because the balance of his soul has become seriously disturbed and to counteract this danger a special ritual is carried out.

According to Fernand, “Superstituos and customs pertaining to twins are universal and often share converging features among cultures without any mutual geographical or temporal contact.” Sometimes our beliefs are based on our culture and tradition, it is also accepted and respected by others, we have our own beliefs and sometimes based it on our culture and apply it as part of the history.

I found an article entitled “Twin studies: What can they tell us about nature and nurture?"by Guang Go, it says that goes combine with the environment to produce complex human traits, they probably share 100% of their genes. Identical twins are monozygotic, they developed from a single sperm fertilizing a single egg, which then divides into two separate cell masses within the first two weeks of development, these are considered as clones. While Fraternal twins are dizygotic, development when two eggs are each separately fertilized by different sperm. Physical or behavior trait is often shared by identical twins than fraternal twins. From DNA-based studies, identical and fraternal twins is still extremely valuable. Researchers can use identical twins to estimate the proportion of individuals with a certain gene that expresses a certain trait. It also states that fraternal twins provide excellent data for genetic mapping studying complex human traits and behaviors are likely to continue using twin and other traditional family studies as a major methodological strategy.

 

According to Guang Go, “A particular environment influences the expression of a genetically influenced trait.” When a twin grows in a different environment probably they would have different attitude, but it doesn’t affect the genes. They will probably have the same hair color, eyes and age, a sign that would prove hat they are twins.