Chapter 1: What is the secret twin study and why is it controversial?
Picture this, it's the 1960s and a young research assistant, fresh out of grad school, approaches a neatly kept middle-class home on Long Island. A man opens the door and shakes her hand, welcoming her into his home where she meets the subject she'll be studying today, a young boy, maybe eight years old.
Together, the researcher and the boy run through a battery of tests to measure his IQ and his motor skills. There's even a Rorschach inkblot to decipher. To top it off, she films him going about his day, playing and interacting with his parents. What's so special about this child? Well, nothing in particular. He's an ordinary boy doing ordinary things.
But the researcher's boss, the man who designed this study, thinks that this boy may hold the solution to one of the great mysteries of science. Is nature stronger than nurture? Now, the boy doesn't know the answer. He doesn't even really know why he's in the study in the first place. And neither do his parents. In fact, the research assistant is the one keeping a big secret.
because she knows that this boy has a brother he's never met, a brother he doesn't even know exists, a brother she just visited and tested last week, his identical twin. And they're both human guinea pigs in a secret twin study that still hasn't seen the light of day. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday.
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Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot.
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One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession.
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Chapter 2: How did the Louise Wise Services Child Development Study begin?
So identical twins make it really easy for scientists to compare results. Say you introduce some kind of environmental change to one twin and not the other, now you can measure the effect pretty accurately. That's a big reason why NASA chose astronaut Scott Kelly to spend 340 days in space. He has a twin brother, Mark, who stayed on Earth.
When Scott returned, researchers could compare the brothers. Everything from their gut bacteria to cell damage revealed how prolonged spaceflight affects the human body. And according to NASA, Scott ended up with what they call Space genes, which really just means his gene expression changed a little bit to respond to the environment of space.
But that's like the coolest thing you could ever say about yourself. Can you imagine walking into a bar like, hi, yeah, I have space genes. As you've seen on the show, every so often an experiment comes around that, well, doesn't have its subject's best interests at heart.
Like when one prominent psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist teamed up with a New York adoption agency to procure identical twins who were separated at birth intentionally. It's the 1960s, and for any Jewish couple looking to adopt, Louise Wise Services in Manhattan is the most coveted agency to work with.
It's well-established, highly respected, and they offer all kinds of counseling and social services. They even have expert consultants, like Dr. Viola Bernard. Dr. Bernard is a pioneer in social psychology with an extensive resume, which now includes her role as the chief psychiatric consultant for Louise Wise Services. And Bernard is responsible for the agency's unique policy.
When newborn twins are put up for adoption, they are split up and sent to two different homes. Bernard has her reasons. She says she believes that separating twins gives them a better shot at developing a more independent identity. And she adds they'll benefit from the undivided attention of their adoptive parents. We'll get into where she got those ideas from later.
For now, just know that this policy of separating twins catches the eye of Bernard's colleague and friend. Dr. Peter Neubauer. He's a professor and a psychoanalyst known for his work with children. And Neubauer sees an opportunity.
Access to twins who are separated at birth and sent off to different families to be brought up in different environments with different rules and schools and families and friends. It's a researcher's dream and not one that comes around every day. It's a rare situation.
If he can compare and contrast two people with near identical DNA who are raised in totally separate environments, he might be able to actually see and hear how external conditions impact who we are. He could settle the longstanding scientific debate over nature versus nurture. Which, as it so happens, is a really hot topic at this time.
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Chapter 3: What unethical practices were involved in the twin separation study?
So if you're counting, that's 13 siblings separated. Now, before the study comes to an end, there is an unforeseen hiccup when two of the families figure out they've been lied to. Okay, it's the mid-1960s, and I'll be using some pseudonyms here. Deborah is six or seven years old. One day, her parents take her with them to a small party where Deborah plays with the other children in attendance.
And one of the little boys there... really freaks Debra out. She's just trying to eat her lunch, and she can't help but notice that the boy won't stop staring at her. Because he happens to be neighbors and playmates with another girl named Janie, who lives 16 miles away from Debra and is her identical twin sister.
Now, none of the little kids understand what's going on here, but the boy tells his mother about Debra, the girl who looks and talks and acts just like Janie. And that's how Debra and Janie's parents realize their daughters have a twin they didn't know about. Naturally, they go straight to the adoption agency and they are livid. How could you lie to us? How could you keep these girls apart?
According to Janie's family, they would have gladly taken in both twins as babies. So, among other things, it feels totally unnecessary to have separated them. which leads to both families realizing there's a little more to that study they've been dealing with all these years. And I don't know if it's their decision or Neubauer's, but Deborah and Janie get to stop participating in the study.
That's the good news, in a sense. The bad news? Viola Bernard reportedly persuades both sets of parents to keep their daughter's twinship a secret. She says telling Deborah about Janie or vice versa at this stage in their lives would be damaging. The families listen to her advice. After all, Bernard is an expert in her field.
So Deborah and Janie don't learn about each other's existence until they're 17 years old. At that point, the study is nearly over. By 1978, all of the children in Neubauer's study have aged out. The youngest twins have turned 12, and the annual visits from a parade of strangers are done. As the twins and triplets grew up, the data that had come back was... incredible.
Neubauer saw similarities between the identical children that he could not believe. Despite growing up in different environments, they shared personality quirks, likes and dislikes, and mannerisms, which seemed to suggest that genetics plays a much bigger role than science believed up to that point. Ethics aside, the findings could be momentous, except
The full LWS-CDC twin study, it's never published. All of the data, the methodology, a lot of the information still hasn't been viewed by anyone outside Neubauer's circle. And yet the study itself is eventually exposed when more of the twins start to find each other and their families demand answers. In 1980, 19-year-old Bobby Schaffran arrives at Sullivan County Community College in New York.
It's the first day of his first semester, and he doesn't know anybody. But right away, the other students strike him as super friendly, a little too friendly, in fact. is really confusing because everybody's coming up to Bobby and saying things like, good to see you, glad you came back.
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Chapter 4: What were the findings of the twin study and why were they never published?
To which David's family replies, well, they would have gladly adopted them all had they known. The families leave feeling as though they didn't get any straight answers. And while the agency is upfront about separating the boys, they don't let on about the study. which could explain what happens next.
According to Bobby's father, when he runs back into the agency to grab his umbrella, he witnesses the higher-ups cracking open a bottle of champagne as if they're celebrating something, and it doesn't sit right with him. the parents consider bringing legal action against LWS. But they claim the law firm they're working with ends up dropping the case.
They have so many clients who want to adopt through Louise Wise that it's in their best interest not to upset such a popular agency. LWS doesn't get off the hook that easily, though. Once the news has had their fill of fluff pieces on the triplets, investigative reporters start to take a deeper look.
Mike Wallace, the legendary broadcast journalist, sits down to speak with Viola Bernard and Peter Neubauer. He intends to produce a segment for 60 Minutes. What follows is a flurry of anxious memos from Bernard. She's nervous about the questions Mike Wallace will cover, particularly if he'll veer into the subject of ethics.
As for Neubauer, he tries to make the case that this segment will cause undue stress for other families that have adopted through LWS over the years. Like, all of them might suddenly wonder if their child has a secret twin. Ultimately, the researchers and the agency decide not to take part in the 60 Minutes episode.
Perhaps anticipating the controversy that's about to blow up, Bernard suggests it's time to revise their policy of separating twins at birth. And they hire a PR person. It's almost as if they're preparing for battle. For various reasons, that particular 60 Minutes piece never airs. But even still, the cat slowly starts wriggling its way out of the bag.
People are picking up on the story, behind the story, and arguing over whether the kids should have ever been separated in the first place and their families lied to. Then, in the mid-90s, the real intent of the twin study is uncovered on a more public stage.
Journalist Lawrence Wright is writing a piece on nature versus nurture for The New Yorker when he stumbles on this obscure mention of twin girls who were separated at birth, raised in separate homes, and studied. Wright has so many questions.
He doesn't know who these twin girls really are because they've been given pseudonyms to protect their identities, and he can't find any more information about the study. which is odd. In his mind, a study like that should have been a big deal. But Wright is an excellent investigator. He'll later go on to win a Pulitzer.
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Chapter 5: How did the twins and triplets eventually find each other?
Before his death, Neubauer entrusted those files to one of the many organizations he worked with over the years. In turn, they donated the files to the Yale University Archives. So, well, let's just go read those files, right? I mean, who's with me? Let's go! Except the records are restricted until October 25th. 2065, 105 years after the study began.
Technically, the twins and triplets from the study are supposed to be allowed to see some of those files, the ones relating to their own data anyway, but they've only gotten access to those files in recent years after facing a series of roadblocks. And even then, some of the information is redacted. Which raises the question, why?
Why gatekeep at this point, when everybody who might be held accountable is dead? Why keep those files hidden? Well, today I am speaking with twin studies expert, Dr. Nancy Siegel, who has done a lot of research on this study and who has seen some of the files herself. Dr. Nancy Siegel is the founder and director of the Twin Studies Center at Cal State Fullerton.
She's also a decorated professor of psychology and a prolific author. Her book, Deliberately Divided, covers the Louise Wise study we're talking about today. She has spoken with Dr. Neubauer. With most of the twins and triplets involved in his study, And yes, she has seen a couple of those hidden files. We are thrilled to welcome her to our show. Dr. Siegel, thank you so much for joining us.
Can you tell us what drew you to twin studies?
Well, I've always been interested in psychology. And so that as a major was a natural for me. But I'm also a fraternal twin. I have a sister who looks and acts nothing like me. And that was the draw for twin studies.
Oh, that's amazing. You're also twin. So what exactly makes twins so special to science?
Well, as far as the science goes, twins are special because it's a very simple and yet very elegant methodology for looking at the genetic and environmental influences underlying behavior. What we do is we compare the similarities of genetically identical twins to those of genetically non-identical or fraternal twins.
And if the identical twins are more alike in running speed, in intelligence, in personality, then we know that the genes play some role in the development of that trait.
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Chapter 6: What impact did the study have on the lives of the twins involved?
We'd have to check that. It could be that something about Linda reminds the twins of somebody or the name Betty or they like the sound of the name. I don't know the answer to the question, but at least it gives us some way of thinking about things beyond just sheer coincidence.
I love that it feels like there's something unexplained happening here because, well, we still don't know exactly why twins sometimes show all these similarities. And so to be totally clear, the Jim twins and all of the twins Dr. Siegel has worked with were studied with their informed consent, but that didn't happen with the LWS CDC study.
Dr. Siegel, were Peter Neubauer or Viola Bernard breaking any laws?
There were no laws being broken, but there was a very difficult moral and ethical line that was being crossed. And I've interviewed a number of experts in the field of bioethics, and they've made a very clear distinction between legal and moral issues. And just because something is legally acceptable... It doesn't mean that morally you should do it.
Just because you can doesn't mean that you should. And as far as I'm concerned, I think this stands as an excellent example of how not to do research.
Yeah, very unethical. And have the laws changed at all? Would a study like this be legal today?
Well, you probably could never get this past the IRB or what is called the Institutional Review Board at your institution. Every university or research outfit maintains a committee that reviews proposals and research outcomes and things of that sort. And to say that you're going to intentionally separate twins would never, never fly.
And if you went ahead and did it anyway, if you intentionally separated twins, I think you could get into a lot of trouble. I don't know if there's actually a law against that. You know, but nevertheless, I think that you would be violating the agreement between you and the university. So in a sense, you could be breaking a law.
I know we're all curious to know what's in that study. Unfortunately, it'll probably never be published. But what do you think that we might have learned if it had been published?
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Chapter 7: What ethical concerns arise from the twin separation study?
But they were angry. They were so angry at this purposeful separation done for the blind scientific ambitions of these researchers. It was anger and the parents were angry too. They wanted to know everything about their child that they could. And yet this one very fundamental thing that their child was a twin was not told to them. And many of them requested twins.
You know, these are childless couples. They were dying for children. And some of them requested twins from the agency and were told there are none. And some of the parents who gave up the children requested that the children stay together. And they were not, they were purposely put apart. And that to me is just so unheard of.
And you know, I met Peter Neubauer and he showed absolutely no remorse, absolutely no remorse for what he did, zero. It's hard for me to understand that. He just didn't see that you don't deprive somebody of the celebrated relationship.
It's heartbreaking knowing there were parents who would have kept the kids together, but they weren't even given the chance. Now, I want to move on and ask about the files from the Neubauer study that are closed until 2065, which seems crazy. What difficulties have the twins faced in accessing them? And why does the public have to wait so long to see them?
Well... The investigators claim that they were closed because they wanted to protect the twins. But in my perspective, they were closed to protect the investigators. And there's this idea of secrecy surrounding them. And that's the problem because from what I've seen, there's nothing so terribly secret in them. But when you don't release something, that creates all kinds of ideas in mind.
Now, the twins have had difficulty, and the current status of it is that they can get them, but they first have to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Why that is, I'll never know. These are people who are interested in their past. The data were taken from them without their consent or their parents' consent. And to me, they should have complete access to everything.
But they have to go through a whole rigmarole. The collection is now run by Yale University, but it actually was put there by the Jewish Board of Family and Child Services in New York City. That's where Peter Neubauer was the child development specialist. And they said at the Jewish board that researchers like me can apply to get access. And I've applied twice and been turned down twice.
So I think that's just not anything that's even real. I think they just did that to show that they're being generous. But I think that... The reason why Viola Bernard and Peter Neubauer kept the study kind of secret, they were upset when somebody learned about it outside their little circle of psychoanalysts in New York City.
Because I think at a certain level, they knew they were doing something wrong. They knew that. And they just wanted to kind of bury it.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from the secret twin study?
We are here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram, at The Conspiracy Pod. And if you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Extra special thanks to our guest today, Dr. Nancy Siegel.
If you'd like to learn more about the study and how some of the other twins eventually found one another, check out her book, Deliberately Divided, Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart. We found her book extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth.
This episode was written and researched by Mickey Taylor, edited by Connor Sampson, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp, and engineered, video edited, and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.