transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:07] 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. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Or check us out on Instagram at the Conspiracy Pod. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Among the many, many conspiracy theories out there, the JFK assassination is the most enthralling to me because of all the avenues it goes down. But if you're hiring, you're lucky. Instead of going down research rabbit holes, you can uncover exactly what you're looking for with ZipRecruiter. And even better, you can try it free at ziprecruiter.com/theory. It's powerful matching technology works fast to find qualified candidates. And a new feature was just added that helps identify candidates who have an interest in your role. They can even send a personal response for why they're interested, which is an excellent way to learn more about them. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/theory. That's ziprecruiter.com/theory. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by OnStar. Looking for something gripping to listen to? Tell Me What Happened is a podcast about ordinary people who are suddenly met with the unexpected. Like a van flipping, a hiker disappearing in the desert, or a man and his dog plunging through ice. Then something amazing happens. Strangers step in, making split-second choices that save lives. And the best part, you hear the story straight from the people who lived it. Listen to season 6 of Tell Me What Happened, out now.

Speaker 2:
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Speaker 1:
[04:23] You might have heard the term twin telepathy or anecdotes about one twin experiencing the same emotions or physical pain as their sibling from hundreds of miles away. It's thought that twins share one of the closest social bonds imaginable. As many as 50% of them even create their own languages or speaking patterns at some point. A language that only they can understand. I actually knew a couple of twins who got held back and had to repeat kindergarten because they only spoke their own language to each other. Well, twins are also invaluable when it comes to science. Identical twins or triplets or any identical multiples originate from the same egg. They share nearly all of their DNA. Genetically, they're as similar as any two people can get. 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. Once got returned, researchers could compare the brothers, everything from their gut bacteria to cell damage revealed how prolonged space flight 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 long-standing scientific debate over nature vs. nurture. Which, as it so happens, is a really hot topic at this time. And so, in 1960, the Louise Wise Services Child Development Study, or the LWS CDC Twin Study, is born. Oh, but one important caveat to this experiment, the children can't know their twins exist, and neither can their adoptive families. Neubauer needs to make sure his variables stay constant. So here's some of what we know about how his twin study works. A nice family looking to adopt would get a call from the Louise Wise Agency. The representative would tell them something to the effect of, we have a baby ready for adoption, but they're already taking part in a study, and we strongly urge you to keep them in that study. They kind of make it sound like it's non-negotiable. And the parents are so thrilled to be getting a child, they always say yes. Like I said, the agency never lets on that the adoptees are twins, or in one case triplets, and they keep the study's details vague. They tell the families it has to do with the development of adopted children or something along those lines. Over the years, Neubauer sends small research teams to check on the adopted children. A mix of pediatricians, psychologists, and research assistants visit their homes every few months for the first two years, and then once per year after that until the kids age out at 12. The researchers film them. They speak to the parents, jot down observations, and they administer tests. Lots of tests. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale, the Bender Gestalt Test, which measures visual motor development, the Draw-A-Person Test, which honestly, that sounds kind of fun to me. There's sentence completion, something called the Three Wishes Tasks. The list goes on. And now, to be clear, the tests themselves are benign, other than that some of the kids hate the attention, and the parents have no reason to suspect that they're being deceived. Except after the tests are all done, after the examiners pack up and leave, they go do it all over again with that kid's identical twin, which feels kind of brutal, because all of the subjects in Neubauer's study grow up without knowing they're twin siblings. And those are years they never get back. All told, Neubauer focuses on 11 children, four sets of twins and one set of triplets born throughout the 1960s. A fifth set of twins is separated, but then dropped from the study as babies after one of them spends a few extra months in foster care. 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 Deborah 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 Deborah, 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 Deborah, the girl who looks and talks and acts just like Janie. And that's how Deborah 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. And 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. Now despite growing up in different environments, they shared personality quirks, likes and dislikes and mannerisms, which seem 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.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 5:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 5:
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Speaker 1:
[16:29] In 1980, 19-year-old Bobby Shafran 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. It's really confusing, because everybody's coming up to Bobby and saying things like, Good to see you! Glad you came back! Girls he swears he's never met before are hugging him, which he doesn't mind, but it's like he's in an episode of The Twilight Zone. A couple of people address him by name. Only, it's the wrong name. People are calling him Eddie, not Bobby. I'm sure we've all been mistaken for someone else before. I mean, I get Tony Hawk, John Stewart sometimes, but of course, that's cool. That's fun. That's somebody famous, but somebody you've never heard of, that's a little weird. So an entire campus thinks Bobby is this guy, Eddie. And now, as Bobby's unpacking in his new dorm room, another student runs in and asks if he was adopted. And Bobby was. Then this guy somehow knows Bobby's birthdate, July 12th, 1961. The guy who runs in explains, I think you have a twin brother. Before Bobby can even begin to comprehend what's going on, the two of them race off to call Eddie on a payphone. When Eddie answers, Bobby hears his own voice speaking back to him. That same night, Bobby and Eddie meet face to face. Sure enough, they are identical and were separated at birth by Louise Wise Services. Pretty wild, right? But we're just getting started. Reporters pick up on this bizarre human interest story and write about the reunion. Days later, Bobby and Eddie's picture appears in the newspaper, which is seen by another 19-year-old named David, who also looks just like them because they are not twins. They're triplets. Now, you might have seen the 2018 documentary, Three Identical Strangers, which covers the case of Bobby, Eddie and David, the ups and downs of how they met, the media blitz that followed, and the discovery of their separation at birth. In the early 1980s, when the story breaks, the triplets are inescapable. Everybody knows who these guys are. They're interviewed on practically every show. And on the surface, even though they've just met for the first time, all three have shocking similarities. From the brand of cigarettes they smoke, to their taste in women. When they move to New York together and become roommates, their antics continue to make news. They eventually open a restaurant together and are featured in the 1985 Madonna movie, Desperately Seeking Susan. People love these guys because they represent happiness and human connection. Their story warms the heart at first. Behind the scenes, the Triplets' families aren't smiling. Yes, they are all overjoyed by their son's reunion, but they also demand answers from the adoption agency and Viola Bernard. The agency invites everyone to gather for a meeting to clear the air. They repeat Bernard's opinion that raising the boys separately was the best way to foster their independence. And they say locating one home for three babies is generally too difficult. To which David's family replies, 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 vs. 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 study. 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, and his research leads him to the doorstep of Dr. Peter Neubauer, who by this point is in his 80s. He agrees to talk to Wright, but Neubauer is guarded and evasive. When asked how the study came about, Neubauer says he'd rather not talk about it until the study is published, which he tells Wright should happen in a year, year and a half. We know now that doesn't happen. There is evidence that Neubauer did plan to write a book about the study. All of this is detailed in Deliberately Divided by Dr. Nancy Segal, who tracked down ex-employees of the book's one-time publisher. It seems there was a proposal and a contract in place with Neubauer, but it was canceled and the book never came out. Dr. Segal points out it's probably because the subjects never gave their informed consent. Apparently, the research team did send out consent forms in 1978, 18 years into the study, but not all the families signed them, and really, informed consent should be obtained beforehand, because of the word informed. Lawrence Wright also spoke with Viola Bernard, who was slightly more forthcoming. She pointed him to the triplets, Bobby, Eddie and David. When Wright told them about the study's true purpose, there was this lightbulb moment. It dawned on the brothers that the three families they grew up with were categorically different. Bobby grew up in an upper class neighborhood. His father was a doctor and his mother a lawyer. Eddie's family was solidly middle class. And David grew up in a blue collar home with parents who were immigrants. Not only that, but all three families had noticeably different parenting styles. So the triplets couldn't help but feel like their families were carefully chosen. Like their lives were orchestrated. And how would Louise Wise Services know so much about the three households? Well, all of the triplets had older siblings, who were also adopted from the same agency. LWS had worked with the families before. And Viola Bernard will later state that yes, it was intentional that these separated kids were given to families who already had an older child. She didn't want the twins or triplets to be raised as only children, which is bizarre since they all had siblings that were kept hidden from them. Now, in all fairness, I should say that not everybody finds the study all that controversial or unethical. Colleagues of Neubauer and Bernard have come out in their defense, arguing that their other scientific and humanitarian work is more indicative of their character. Some argue that we can't place today's values on something that happened a long time ago. Not that long ago. And yes, the study did receive federal funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, which held check-ins and never reported any wrongdoing. I wish we had more specifics on that, but we don't. As for the twins though, they certainly don't think what happened to their lives was right. Over the years, more and more of them found each other. Like Melanie and Ellen in 1989, Melanie was working at an IHOP in Brooklyn when one of her customers randomly asked if she was adopted. Melanie was adopted, but she didn't know this lady. So she said no. The woman came back armed with a photograph of her niece, Ellen. And that's how Melanie learned she had a secret twin, in between serving pancake platters on a busy workday. Melanie and Ellen got along, but by the time they found each other, they were in their 20s. They were busy with jobs and boyfriends. They lived in different states. They're still in touch. But say it was difficult to get really close, the way twins usually are, since they weren't raised together. And that's something they can't change. Other twins don't find each other until much later in life. Sharon Morello only finds out about her sister in 2015, when she's in her late 40s, soon after they have a falling out. As for the triplets, Bobby, Eddie and David, while they initially had a close bond, it didn't last. It couldn't. When they were young, they had all the time in the world to hang out. Then came marriages, kids, and trying to manage a business together. And since they hadn't grown up in the same home and didn't have years of practice negotiating with one another, they naturally drifted apart. So it might not be surprising that there's some distrust between the families involved in the study and those who conducted it. Eventually, some of the twins and triplets form a new theory that maybe Neubauer had another more specific goal he never owned up to. Maybe he was really testing the effects of nature versus nurture on mental health. Maybe he was choosing children who were predisposed to mental illness. I can't speak for all of the kids involved in the study, but the triplets have said they all set out psychiatric care in their teens. In 1995, Eddie died by suicide. Another pair of twins who were later reunited, Paula and Elise, say they've both dealt with depression and they learned through their own research that their birth mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. With so many lingering questions about the study, they've wondered if that was another reason they were chosen. However, we do have one helpful account from a man named Larry Perlman. He worked as one of Neubauer's research assistants for about 10 months, and he's one of the few people involved who's been willing to go on record. He's actually how we know about the timing of the visits and the kinds of tests that were administered. And he says he never encountered any references to the birth parents' mental health. The truth is, it's hard to know anything for certain when the research is still hidden. Viola Bernard passed away in 1998, Peter Neubauer in 2008, and Louise Wise Services shut down in 2004. But all of those files and notes and test results still exist somewhere. They could lay a lot of questions to rest if we could read them. Well, here's the thing. 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 Segal, who has done a lot of research on this study, and who has seen some of the files herself.

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Speaker 1:
[33:38] Dr. Nancy Segal 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. Segal, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us what drew you to Twin Studies?

Speaker 7:
[34:14] 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.

Speaker 1:
[34:27] Oh, that's amazing that you're also a twin. So what exactly makes twins so special to science?

Speaker 7:
[34:34] 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.

Speaker 1:
[35:05] Yeah, fascinating. I want to ask you about this landmark study, the Jim Twins. For our listeners, they were twin brothers who were, for whatever reason, separated at birth, and they both were named Jim by their adopted families. Years later, they were studied as adults. In a study, you, Nancy, know well, because you took part in the study.

Speaker 7:
[35:24] I can tell you a lot about the Jim Twins. The Jim Twins were in the state of Ohio. They were born about 40, 50 miles apart in different cities. That's where they grew up. And then when they met at the age of 39, they discovered a whole long list of similarities in addition to their first names. They both had mixed headache syndromes when they were teenagers. They both put on the same amount of weight at a certain point in adulthood. They both liked to do woodworking, and they both had worked part time in sheriff's offices. They both worked part time in McDonald's. They both bit their fingernails to the nub. They both married Linda, divorced Linda and married Betty. And then of course, one of the twins divorced Betty, married Sandy. So I'm sure the other Betty was quite alarmed by that development. But they also were very close brothers. They got along beautifully. And that was a great thing. You know, when you meet identical twins, they tend to merge one into the other. And with the twin, Jim twins, one of them wore his hair combed down over his forehead, and the other wore it slicked back. And yet, I still could never remember which twin was which. I just knew they were not the same person.

Speaker 1:
[36:37] That is incredible to me. Is there something in our DNA telling us to, I mean, in this example, marry someone named Linda? How do we explain those kind of coincidences?

Speaker 7:
[36:48] Yeah, that's a great question. And see, when we see these kinds of things in identical twins, it gives us a whole new way of thinking about things. It gives us all new fresh hypotheses and ideas. So, no, of course, our genes don't speak to us. They don't command us. We make the decision. Genes only incline us in a certain direction. Now, marrying two women named Linda and named Betty, it's hard to say. Those could have been common names at the time. 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.

Speaker 1:
[37:33] I love that it feels like there's something unexplained happening here because 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. Segal has worked with were studied with their informed consent, but that didn't happen with the LWS CDC study. Dr. Segal, were Peter Neubauer or Viola Bernard breaking any laws?

Speaker 7:
[38:00] 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.

Speaker 1:
[38:34] Yeah, very unethical. And have the laws changed at all? Would a study like this be legal today?

Speaker 7:
[38:40] 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.

Speaker 1:
[39:19] 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?

Speaker 7:
[39:28] It was really not designed well enough to tell us anything because they had very small numbers. Now, they did do repeated IQ testings. And in fact, I have access to two of the files because the twins sent them to me. And I look at them, I'm interested in them. I would never publish anything from them. If I did, I would have to get the twins consent. But there's nothing in there that I think is reasonable to report.

Speaker 1:
[39:51] I know that one way Viola Bernard rationalizes separation was saying that there wasn't a strong bond yet between twins. But what do you know about when the bond develops?

Speaker 7:
[40:02] We know that twins are aware of one another, even as young as four months old. There was a wonderful case study that looked at twins where one was taken away to another room and the other was looking around and looking around. So we don't really know exactly when the bond begins. It's probably pretty early. Viola Bernard did say that if the twins show was called the twinning reaction, and that is kind of an awareness and interaction between twins. She said if they showed that, then they would not be separated. Well, she didn't follow her advice. There was a pair of twins who stayed together in the same room, maybe even the same crib until six months. And the way it was described was that they were the most permanent object in each other's lives because they were moved to foster care here, another home here, back to a hospital here. So they moved around a lot, but they were with each other all the time. And then they were separated. So she didn't even follow her own rules.

Speaker 1:
[41:03] That is a bit horrifying. And as for her other rationale, saying that the separating twins was better for their individual development, did you find any evidence to support that? I mean, what was she talking about?

Speaker 7:
[41:17] It's hard to know what she was talking about. She claims in her writings and in her interview that I heard, that the child development literature at the time said that twins are better off apart for developing individuality. But there is no such literature that shows that. I've looked at all the studies they've cited, and they cited some of them incorrectly. It's just a mess. And I've spoken to some of my colleagues who are older now, but were younger at the time. And they also agreed that there's absolutely no scientific literature to support that. Now, many people think that Viola Bernard came up with this idea. And then when Peter Neubauer learned of it, because they were friends, that he decided to do the study because the twins are being separated anyway. But, you know, I'm not so sure that that's the correct chronology of this. I sometimes think that because Peter Neubauer always wanted to do a prospective study, an ongoing study of infant-separated twins in real time, that maybe Viola Bernard kind of gave him the rationale to do so. And I can't prove that. But I think it is a possibility that we should not let go of.

Speaker 1:
[42:26] Very interesting. So they are friends. He could be influencing her. So are you saying it's possible that Dr. Neubauer was pulling the strings?

Speaker 7:
[42:35] I think it is possible. He was very powerful. But again, I'm speculating here. It's just that I think that that possibility is certainly open. Now, what's interesting to me too, is that Viola Bernard never publicized this policy. If you really believe the twins are better off separated, you give papers to the Academy of Pediatrics, and you write about it in the newspaper, and you give public lectures, and she never did that. And she had great nieces who were identical twin girls. And she never said to the mother, you should move them apart. Never said that. And I'm sure that mothers who have twins, if they really believe the twins are better off apart, it might be painful, but parents make sacrifices for their kids all the time, and maybe they would have. But she never went public with this idea.

Speaker 1:
[43:23] Now turning to the kids that were in the study, adults now, it's hard to imagine that the twins and triplets in this study, or what they went through, but you've had the opportunity to interview many of them. How do they feel about what happened to them?

Speaker 7:
[43:36] Well, they were happy to meet the twin, and most of the time, they got along pretty well, although lacking a shared social history, they were bumps along the way in some of the relationships. 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. These are the 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 purposely put apart. And that to me is just so unheard of. And 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.

Speaker 1:
[44:44] 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?

Speaker 7:
[45:07] 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's 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.

Speaker 1:
[46:44] Yeah, I think so. I mean, sure, I mean, once the twins and triplets start finding each other's adults, it really becomes clear just how much this experiment affected people's lives.

Speaker 7:
[46:54] And I am willing to bet to you that there are twins out there who don't know that they were part of this experiment.

Speaker 1:
[47:02] Wait, really? There could still be twins out there separated at Louise Wise that have never figured out they're twins?

Speaker 7:
[47:09] Not identicals as much as fraternals. Because identical twins, many of them met through mistaken identity, and they were all living in the New York, New Jersey, Long Island areas. That's where they were adopted in those families. But there could be fraternal twins who cross paths every day and have no knowledge that they were part of a pair. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[47:27] And do we know how many other twins could be out there? Is it dozens, hundreds?

Speaker 7:
[47:32] No, there really isn't. You've got to remember the twins are still a minority in the population. And these are twins born to single Jewish women in New York City between the years of about late 50s to maybe early 70s. That's it. But as I said, there probably are fraternal twins out there. I doubt that there are identicals out there.

Speaker 1:
[47:52] That just absolutely blows my mind. You could be behind your fraternal twin in light of the grocery store or the movie theater and never know it. It is heartbreaking to think there could be people out there missing a huge part of themselves. Okay. So, overall, do you think that there's any lesson to be learned from Neubauer's study?

Speaker 7:
[48:14] Well, as I said, the last line of my book is, this is a great example of how research should not be done. It really gives you a respect for the investigator-participant relationship, one of openness, one of honesty, one of information, give and take. That is so important. You find that participants appreciate that and are much more willing to disclose information if they know you appreciate it and are willing to keep it confidential and have gathered it under ethical circumstances. In terms of what we learned about twins, I think it just underlines the importance of the twin relationship. Just how happy these twins were to meet each other, but just so unhappy to realize all that they had lost.

Speaker 1:
[48:58] Yeah. Well, as we said, it's heartbreaking. Well, Dr. Segal, thank you so much for coming on our show and speaking with us.

Speaker 7:
[49:06] Well, I can't say it was my pleasure because we were talking about a topic that is not very pleasant. But if it informs your listeners and your viewers, then I'm pleased that I came on.

Speaker 1:
[49:18] One thing about this story that really resonates with me is how close we came to never knowing about it. What if Bobby and Eddie's friend didn't put two and two together and introduced them? What if Ellen's aunt never went back to that IHOP, carrying a photo of her niece as proof? What if Lawrence Wright skipped over that one obscure mention of a twin study presented without citation or just shrugged it off? Makes me wonder how many other secrets and unethical experiments out there are waiting to be exposed. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We are here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at the ConspiracyPod. And if you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Extra special thanks to our guest today, Dr. Nancy Segal. 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.

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