Your doppelgänger is out there and you probably share DNA with them(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Your doppelgänger is out there and you probably share DNA with them
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/science/doppelgangers-twins-dna.html
126 comments
Googling Irish in the Bahamas gives a book on Amazon with this description "Beginning in the mid-16th century and down through the 18th century, thousands of immigrants of Scots-Irish origin migrated to the Bahamas, which included the Turks and Caicos Islands". Also Malone is an Irish surname. Ethnic groups would historically married within their own groups. The only slightly surprising elements are the locations.
I always find it interesting how people refer to this scenario. You said they migrated, which is true, in a sense. Lot of argument about this subject but I am less interested in the argument than the why of the argument.
On the one hand you have those bending over backwards to debunk the "myth" of Irish "slavery" (simple example [0]) by making sure everyone knows it was just indentured servitude where they were beat and killed with impunity and had no freedoms other than the potential to disguise themselves as free men due to their skin color, and if you call them slaves you're perpetuating white supremacist conspiracy theories.
On the other hand you have historical accounts of the Irish being treated identically to slaves [1].
Why? Why are some people so determined to twist history such that only one victim group is allowed? Not saying you're doing this; I am only using your choice of phrasing to bring this up in one of the few places where I might get an honest answer.
[0]: https://interzine.org/2020/10/18/repudiating-the-irish-slave...
[1]: http://dx.doi.org/10.37389/abei.v8i0.3721
On the one hand you have those bending over backwards to debunk the "myth" of Irish "slavery" (simple example [0]) by making sure everyone knows it was just indentured servitude where they were beat and killed with impunity and had no freedoms other than the potential to disguise themselves as free men due to their skin color, and if you call them slaves you're perpetuating white supremacist conspiracy theories.
On the other hand you have historical accounts of the Irish being treated identically to slaves [1].
Why? Why are some people so determined to twist history such that only one victim group is allowed? Not saying you're doing this; I am only using your choice of phrasing to bring this up in one of the few places where I might get an honest answer.
[0]: https://interzine.org/2020/10/18/repudiating-the-irish-slave...
[1]: http://dx.doi.org/10.37389/abei.v8i0.3721
This is a great point, and I appreciate the way you approached this. Irish slavery also occured within Ireland through Magdalene Laundries
[0]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Irela...
[0]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Irela...
I do see a difference between (my understanding of) indentured servitude and slavery.
If I [or my family] chose it (in exchange for passage, food, and/or opportunities), that feels materially different from my freedom being stolen me without anyone in my family having a choice in the matter and for any of my children to also be non-free.
Apologies if my understanding (from basic US schooling) mismatching the reality of things, of course.
If I [or my family] chose it (in exchange for passage, food, and/or opportunities), that feels materially different from my freedom being stolen me without anyone in my family having a choice in the matter and for any of my children to also be non-free.
Apologies if my understanding (from basic US schooling) mismatching the reality of things, of course.
There are millions of people in slavery today (considered slavery by contemporary standards) who "chose" to make the journey in exchange for passage, food and opportunities.
The vast majority are of South-asian (India/Bangladesh) and South-east-asian (Thailand) origin.
They sign agreements, get on those flights, and find out that too late that they've basically signed themselves into slavery.
This was the lot of the Irish, and of Indians under the British Raj. Indentured servitude differed in only one way from slavery... the slaves were property and could therefore be destroyed (killed) by their owners with impunity.
The case of the Indians was even worse because illiteracy meant that many were tricked into it. They thought they'd just be a short distance from home, and had no idea they were going to be transported across two oceans.
Recommended reading: https://harvardlawreview.org/2021/03/the-agreement-and-the-g...
The vast majority are of South-asian (India/Bangladesh) and South-east-asian (Thailand) origin.
They sign agreements, get on those flights, and find out that too late that they've basically signed themselves into slavery.
This was the lot of the Irish, and of Indians under the British Raj. Indentured servitude differed in only one way from slavery... the slaves were property and could therefore be destroyed (killed) by their owners with impunity.
The case of the Indians was even worse because illiteracy meant that many were tricked into it. They thought they'd just be a short distance from home, and had no idea they were going to be transported across two oceans.
Recommended reading: https://harvardlawreview.org/2021/03/the-agreement-and-the-g...
Also appreciate how you approached this. I think it’s very important for individuals in multi-ethnic societies (or any society) to understand the history of how they got there, and it’s relation to society at the time and up to the present.
In the case of Irish indentured servants, I’m sure the difference between them and enslaved peoples from Africa were only academic from their perspective. And there is so much that I don’t understand in terms of the circumstances of them leaving Ireland. However with respect to the institutions that have developed since, equating the two requires a narrow analysis of the scale (numbers and time) and permanence (legal and cultural) of both. Hence the importance of understanding the facts of your own background in order to have healthy exchanges with people of different backgrounds (especially when historical, violent oppression is involved).
Edit: I should add and also excepting that others may have deeper understanding and taking a posture of learning instead of “winning” from the exchange.
In the case of Irish indentured servants, I’m sure the difference between them and enslaved peoples from Africa were only academic from their perspective. And there is so much that I don’t understand in terms of the circumstances of them leaving Ireland. However with respect to the institutions that have developed since, equating the two requires a narrow analysis of the scale (numbers and time) and permanence (legal and cultural) of both. Hence the importance of understanding the facts of your own background in order to have healthy exchanges with people of different backgrounds (especially when historical, violent oppression is involved).
Edit: I should add and also excepting that others may have deeper understanding and taking a posture of learning instead of “winning” from the exchange.
I was quoting the short description provided by Google, I fully accept that Irish slavery existed with the sacking of Baltimore being an interesting example as it was white people kidnapped into slavery by Africans.
What is it called when someone is kidnapped and forced by violence to labor without pay? That, whatever that is called, is what large numbers of Irish endured.
I read it was common to make the Irish woman slave to breed with the African slave, so that the child would be part African and owned by the slave master,
This made it very uncommon for the Irish slave to leave, as she would be leaving her child.
I read accounts of pale skin red headed children being sold at slave markets marketing as African.
But, this could just be some right wing talking points. I honestly don't know what's real online anymore.
This made it very uncommon for the Irish slave to leave, as she would be leaving her child.
I read accounts of pale skin red headed children being sold at slave markets marketing as African.
But, this could just be some right wing talking points. I honestly don't know what's real online anymore.
Right. There is no such thing as a “Dominican” or “Bahamian” unless you are referring to full blooded native Taino, of which none exist. It’s all either African or European to varying degrees.
If you were walking down the street and saw your Doppelgänger, would you instantly recognize them? You see yourself most days in the mirror but that's a very limited context. Seeing "yourself" walking down the street towards you, would you know who they remind you of?
I think if I saw my doppelganger I'd think, at a minimum "He has a familiar looking face". I'd probably also think, at a minimum, "I've seen that guy around somewhere before."
These faces aren't really that similar. The doppelganger effect is mostly coming from similar clothing, hair style, facial hair, glasses, and so on.
To use an example, look closely at the features one by one of the two men. Individually they're all pretty significantly different. But your eyes gloss over the differences because the hair, glasses, and beard are nearly identical. However those are all changeable features. Grow the hair out, shave the beard, and lose the glasses on one of them and they'd be far less doppelgangery.
To use an example, look closely at the features one by one of the two men. Individually they're all pretty significantly different. But your eyes gloss over the differences because the hair, glasses, and beard are nearly identical. However those are all changeable features. Grow the hair out, shave the beard, and lose the glasses on one of them and they'd be far less doppelgangery.
I've had this happen to me. It's pretty uncanny actually. I didn't stop to chat with him, but I could absolutely tell by the expression on his face that he was thinking the exact same thing as me.
There's also a local news caster that looks dead on me (albeit, with nicer hair). So much so that multiple people have sent me pictures of the person. It's very weird to see "yourself" on TV.
So, to answer your question: yes.
There's also a local news caster that looks dead on me (albeit, with nicer hair). So much so that multiple people have sent me pictures of the person. It's very weird to see "yourself" on TV.
So, to answer your question: yes.
I'm sure it depends on the person. A lot of people spend a lot of time staring at their own faces in the mirror and carefully examining hundreds or thousands of photographs of themselves. Whereas I'm pretty sure that my doppelganger would vaguely remind me of someone, and a day or two later I'd realize the person they reminded me of was me.
Yeah not me… I always wonder what is going on in movies when the character immediately recognizes themselves.
I would for sure. I often come across similar looking persons (height, haircut, style, etc.) and it’s kinda awkward enough, I don’t think I wouldn’t realize I’m in front of my doppelgänger.
Is my Doppelgänger an enantiomorph?
the same way you recognise yourself in a mirror
This story is more Style than science.
The science is fine, but it's verifying that commons sense is true: > That people who look more alike have more genes in common “would seem like common sense, but never had been shown,” he added.
The science is fine, but it's verifying that commons sense is true: > That people who look more alike have more genes in common “would seem like common sense, but never had been shown,” he added.
> “would seem like common sense, but never had been shown,”
and might not be the case "in general"
I mean convergent evolution lead to different species with very different DNA looking similar.
And evolution doesn't choose what to do, stuff (mutations etc.) "just happen randomly" and some things propagate more then others.
So for me two unrelated people with rather different DNA happen to look extremely similar seems to be quite reasonable.
Through some unrelated people having rather similar DNA is as reasonable.
and might not be the case "in general"
I mean convergent evolution lead to different species with very different DNA looking similar.
And evolution doesn't choose what to do, stuff (mutations etc.) "just happen randomly" and some things propagate more then others.
So for me two unrelated people with rather different DNA happen to look extremely similar seems to be quite reasonable.
Through some unrelated people having rather similar DNA is as reasonable.
The article also notes that the similarities surprisingly end at the genome. Unlike twins these folks don't have especially similar microbiomes or lifestyles or other environmental factors. So the similarity is strictly genetic which is actually a little unexpected. With a large enough sample set these folks might actually be a useful population for study. People with the genetic similarity of siblings but not environment.
Fun thing is while my post was written with a "I'm not sure about this article" mindset it kinda supports the article.
I mean what is convergent evolution in context of an single species?
Wouldn't it be pretty much genetic variances of multiple people which are unrelated randomly converging by chance?
Sure with convergent evolution in nature you still don't necessary have DNA similarities, but there the DNA also largely diverged to a point of it being different species before converging. For humans the DNA was always similar so the simplest (i.e. most likely) way would to reach the same "looking" outcome would be by having the same changes/mixing of DNA variations.
I mean what is convergent evolution in context of an single species?
Wouldn't it be pretty much genetic variances of multiple people which are unrelated randomly converging by chance?
Sure with convergent evolution in nature you still don't necessary have DNA similarities, but there the DNA also largely diverged to a point of it being different species before converging. For humans the DNA was always similar so the simplest (i.e. most likely) way would to reach the same "looking" outcome would be by having the same changes/mixing of DNA variations.
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Walking hash collisions!
Yeah, you'd think it's common sense, right? If two multi-gigabyte files have some thirty-odd bits in common in their SHA-256, they've just got to have more content in common than files with completely different SHA-256 digests!
:)
:)
Damn pigeon holes!
Some of us even share the same birthday.
For whatever reason that page would not load for me, so here's an alternative.
https://archive.ph/Z9jMU
https://archive.ph/Z9jMU
> Qa4ON
A suspicious doppelganger of its own
A suspicious doppelganger of its own
In the ninth century, the Buddhist sage Lin Chi told a monk, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
I've been singlegänging around too long to let some upstart take the chalice. There can be only one.
I've been singlegänging around too long to let some upstart take the chalice. There can be only one.
I have two name doppelgängers on the internet. One I get spam for, the other I apparently get recruiting spam for. (We’re both software engineers.)
It was delightfully funny when a Google interviewer called me for a phone screen one random morning, and was quite annoyed I had no idea what they were talking about. Then I realized what happened.
“Do you think I’m an Android engineer from Yahoo?” “Uh… yes?” “Yeah, that’s not me.”
I later looked him up on LinkedIn. Turns out, he got the job.
It was delightfully funny when a Google interviewer called me for a phone screen one random morning, and was quite annoyed I had no idea what they were talking about. Then I realized what happened.
“Do you think I’m an Android engineer from Yahoo?” “Uh… yes?” “Yeah, that’s not me.”
I later looked him up on LinkedIn. Turns out, he got the job.
I used to get those from Google about the person with my name who worked for Microsoft doing compiler stuff. Well, I didn't take any calls, just emails.
There's a lot of people with my name though... including a well-known author. I was really freaked out when I was taking a lunch break and the NPR announcer said I was to be interviewed on Fresh Air later in the day. I was woefully unprepared for such an interview; thankfully, it wasn't really me.
There's a lot of people with my name though... including a well-known author. I was really freaked out when I was taking a lunch break and the NPR announcer said I was to be interviewed on Fresh Air later in the day. I was woefully unprepared for such an interview; thankfully, it wasn't really me.
Alas, I can't find it, but there was a documentary quite a while ago (the 90s or aughts, maybe?) where the documentarian invited several people to dinner that all shared the same name with him.
I remember thinking it was kind of weird and cool
I remember thinking it was kind of weird and cool
What was the purpose and context of that quote?
I’m not familiar with the lore enough.
What is the significance of there being a/the buddha existing?
I’m not familiar with the lore enough.
What is the significance of there being a/the buddha existing?
I studied this a long time ago so I am rusty, but the meaning behind it from what I remember was that if you meet the buddha you kill him, because its killing your own biases, expectations and conceptions. The buddha on the road is supposed to be yourself in this situation.
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“a Buddha” not “the Buddha”
That's not the quote, although I guess you could argue it needs a [sic]
Like "That's one small step for [a] man..."
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/13/armstron...
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/13/armstron...
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Please explain the difference between a Buddha and the Buddha.
A Buddha is someone who reached enlightenment.
The Buddha is Buddha the guy.
The Buddha is Buddha the guy.
Actually, The Buddha we all know about (Siddharta Gotama, affectionately called Sakyamuni, as he belonged to the Sakyan clan) is indeed the Buddha of our current world system, but there were Buddhas before him and there will be Buddhas after him -- they will just belong to different world systems. The next Buddha is referred to as Metteyya (Maitreya for the Mahayana folks).
An enlightened person is called an Arahat (Arahant). They are not Buddhas. The Buddha is one person in one world-system who rediscovers the Dhamma (Dharma) after it has been lost. Often a Buddha goes on to teach that Dhamma, but there are certain Buddhas who arise who never teach. These are called Paccekka Buddhas.
An enlightened person is called an Arahat (Arahant). They are not Buddhas. The Buddha is one person in one world-system who rediscovers the Dhamma (Dharma) after it has been lost. Often a Buddha goes on to teach that Dhamma, but there are certain Buddhas who arise who never teach. These are called Paccekka Buddhas.
I guess it depends on your school of Buddhism and I think your statement is more in line with Theravada. In Vajrayana formulations, though, the goal is Buddhahood in a single lifetime and there are countless Buddhas that are used in practice. For example, in Aityoga [1] you'll often do visualization practice as, say, Tara [2] or Medicine Buddha [3]. Of course, all of it is ultimately considered illusion, as Niguma articulated so well in her dohas [4], but it's all useful for practice.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaisajyaguru
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niguma
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaisajyaguru
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niguma
Citation? If I search Google for "meet buddha on the road kill him" (note, no "a" or "the") all the results show "the."
An uncited translation that the article says comes from a manga comic. I'll trust the thousands of other translations a little more.
Nope, it's "the Buddha".
Technically, Chinese doesn't have words for "a" or "the". It's only in English and other Western languages that the distinction makes sense.
The distinction makes sense everywhere, but it's not tracked in Chinese (as in many other languages).
It's still possible to look at a Chinese text and determine accurately whether an English translation should mark definiteness or indefiniteness on particular nouns. That wouldn't be possible if the distinction didn't make sense.
It's still possible to look at a Chinese text and determine accurately whether an English translation should mark definiteness or indefiniteness on particular nouns. That wouldn't be possible if the distinction didn't make sense.
What about an app to find your dopplerganger by going through some normalized selfie process and auto matching? It would be a nightmare for privacy I guess.
A simple google search turns up tons of those - as you mention though, which ones do you trust?
There's a facial recognition reverse search engine that's been around for a while called Pimeyes. I think the idea of it is to see where there's pictures of you on the internet, but if you throw images of your face in there, the false matches will give you basically what you described.
Isn't this like the plot of an episode of the show Elementary?
I had a doppelgänger during college. Made for some beyond-weird circumstances. We got to be pretty good friends, but I'd wear a hat and sunglasses when we we were in the same place at the same time, it was weird to me even at those times.
And yes, there was a time when a hat and sunglasses was not what anyone wore in general, so it was a bit Unabomberish.
And yes, there was a time when a hat and sunglasses was not what anyone wore in general, so it was a bit Unabomberish.
I had one in college too, but never met him. I would just get comments from people about it.
One was from a cousin who knew me very well who told me she thought it was me initially, so there's no way this person just 'kind of' looked like me.
One was from a cousin who knew me very well who told me she thought it was me initially, so there's no way this person just 'kind of' looked like me.
Don't tell me this was at CU, otherwise there were tons of doppelgangers around.
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My wife found my doppleganger on the internet and the wild thing is that he has the same first name as me.
Is that what you convinced her when she found your tinder profile?
I know a married couple who each have identical twin siblings. The identical siblings also married each other. The children of each couple, who are cousins, definitely look more like siblings than cousins.
Genetically speaking, all of the children from both couples are indistiguishable from siblings.
There was a story about a pair of twins like that in the Washington Post recently:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/24/virginia...
The marriage is known as a quaternary marriage, and the cousins are known as quaternary twins.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/24/virginia...
The marriage is known as a quaternary marriage, and the cousins are known as quaternary twins.
I have a friend named Ryan. He has a brother named Mike. Mike is married to a woman named Ryan. She has a brother named Mike.
I had one that lived near me with the same first name but I never got to see them or find out what their last name was.
I worked in a dollar store and my co-workers started talking to them thinking I came in on a day I had off. One of their close friends started talking to me once while I was working. Their old baby sitter would ask me about my sister when she saw me in public. They were both very confused when I insisted that I'm a different person. They couldn't tell from my voice alone so I think my doppleganger had a similar voice too.
That's what I told my wife when she found my Tinder account too.
I have a pretty similar-looking celebrity doppelgänger. Turns out we were born 9 months apart (which isn't too surprising, considering being the same age would contribute to us looking alike), but we're also the same height!
https://www.ilooklikeyou.com/
https://starbyface.com/
https://twinstrangers.net/
https://www.familysearch.org/discovery/compareme
Art Selfie: https://artsandculture.google.com/camera/selfie
https://lens.google/
https://starbyface.com/
https://twinstrangers.net/
https://www.familysearch.org/discovery/compareme
Art Selfie: https://artsandculture.google.com/camera/selfie
https://lens.google/
Im not uploading a picture of myself into these websites that look like they havent been modified since 2012.
Isn't the majority of DNA between humans equal ?
Search function on the web shows 99.9%
I always wonder how Doppelgängers from far away places in the world happen to meet each other.
And how the porn industry was able to find so many and which are willing to become pornographic actors.
And how the porn industry was able to find so many and which are willing to become pornographic actors.
Makeup and hairstyle go a long way to making lookalikes.
There are only so many face shapes and body sizes.
There are only so many face shapes and body sizes.
Yeah and if AI facial recognition has taught us anything, it's that distinctions that "look" obvious to humans can, in actuality be incredibly subtle. We're just really good at differentiating and recognizing faces.
There are as few faces as the size of that parameter space you're willing to quantize them into (provided that space is large enough not to fail to distinguish variations that are glaringly obvious to the eye).
And how the porn industry was able to find so many and which are willing to become pornographic actors.
I suspect most of them were already in the porn industry, realized they kinda looked like someone and leaned into it.
Though, if you look like a celebrity people will tell you. The more you look like them the more often you'll hear it. With social media I suspect it spreads pretty quickly with tagging the celebrity directly and whatnot. As far as who are willing, I would have to guess that being presented a clear contract and check with the right amount of zeros would convince most people.
I suspect most of them were already in the porn industry, realized they kinda looked like someone and leaned into it.
Though, if you look like a celebrity people will tell you. The more you look like them the more often you'll hear it. With social media I suspect it spreads pretty quickly with tagging the celebrity directly and whatnot. As far as who are willing, I would have to guess that being presented a clear contract and check with the right amount of zeros would convince most people.
i just hope he isn't going to murder anyone. After all, i'm doing him the same favor
It's clear people are attracted to others with similar physical features so...
Dating app idea: Matching you with a genetically similar person (of your preferred partner sex).
Dating app idea: Matching you with a genetically similar person (of your preferred partner sex).
That's an interesting idea. Would there be safety checks to ensure the matched couples are not related to one another and that they do not both have the same genetic defects that increase the chances of the offspring inheriting said defects? I ask because sometimes people end up meeting and dating a half sibling that the parent did not tell them about for reasons that were not supposed to ever be known.
Isn't the aversion towards consanguinity more about taboo than science these days?
I'm guessing modern genetic tests can predict the safety of having children even between siblings (because most of the issues are with recessive genes).
I'm guessing modern genetic tests can predict the safety of having children even between siblings (because most of the issues are with recessive genes).
Im probably going to get a lot of flack for this, but I'd say it's the taboo part.
It wasn't that long ago that gay marriage was illegal with, as far as I know, the only real argument being the opinion of "That's gross". With the tests you describe, or permanent sterilization, the only real thing in the way of incestuous marriage is "That's gross". I'm guessing we won't see any court decisions that truly dive into the reasoning for a long time, if ever (in our lifetimes). It is an interesting thought experiment.
It wasn't that long ago that gay marriage was illegal with, as far as I know, the only real argument being the opinion of "That's gross". With the tests you describe, or permanent sterilization, the only real thing in the way of incestuous marriage is "That's gross". I'm guessing we won't see any court decisions that truly dive into the reasoning for a long time, if ever (in our lifetimes). It is an interesting thought experiment.
Isn't the aversion towards consanguinity more about taboo than science these days?
I honestly don't know. I suppose if the system could at least run tests for the recessive genes maybe that is sufficient. Even if the issues are strictly taboo it could possibly make for very awkward family gatherings as people start to put together who knew who.
I honestly don't know. I suppose if the system could at least run tests for the recessive genes maybe that is sufficient. Even if the issues are strictly taboo it could possibly make for very awkward family gatherings as people start to put together who knew who.
Doctor: "Tests came back negative my man, have at your sister!!"
High fives all around
High fives all around
You seem a little overexcited about this…
That’s actually not clear to me. Anecdotally I have often experienced the saying “opposite attract” to be true. I have had discussions with friends who hold your point of view. Of course it could also depend on how we define similarity (e.g in terms of race, ethnicity, personality type, etc.). I wonder if there’s some percentage of the population that’s wired to look outside of itself.
> “opposite attract”
This is neither right nor wrong. As is usually the case, it's quite a bit more complicated than that.
Most people who enter a relationship with someone else prefer a partner with a significant overlap in their demographic. Especially attributes like age, race, class, culture, height, hobbies, ambitions, etc. This is not universal, of course, but it is far and away the most common case, and is supported by both research and casual observation.
The most robust romantic relationships seem to be when the two people are largely similar but whose more minor differences complement one another in a positive way. One way to summarize it: A strong team of two is more than twice as effective as a single individual. Relationships that don't last tend to be because the individuals cannot find enough common ground to be happy in the present and don't see a positive future (the most common case), or because they are _too_ similar, grow bored of the relationship and feel like they are missing out on some critical piece.
There are outlier couples who seem to do just fine despite apparently massive difference differences in personality, culture, and so forth, but they are just that: outliers.
This is neither right nor wrong. As is usually the case, it's quite a bit more complicated than that.
Most people who enter a relationship with someone else prefer a partner with a significant overlap in their demographic. Especially attributes like age, race, class, culture, height, hobbies, ambitions, etc. This is not universal, of course, but it is far and away the most common case, and is supported by both research and casual observation.
The most robust romantic relationships seem to be when the two people are largely similar but whose more minor differences complement one another in a positive way. One way to summarize it: A strong team of two is more than twice as effective as a single individual. Relationships that don't last tend to be because the individuals cannot find enough common ground to be happy in the present and don't see a positive future (the most common case), or because they are _too_ similar, grow bored of the relationship and feel like they are missing out on some critical piece.
There are outlier couples who seem to do just fine despite apparently massive difference differences in personality, culture, and so forth, but they are just that: outliers.
I mostly agree with your post. I’m just curious about which variables people care about most and how accurate your “far and away” statement is. For example, a quick google search suggests that if we take race/ethnicity, the following study shows that 17% of newlywed couples in the US are intermarried.[1] A minority to be sure, but a substantial one. Of course this is just one variable. It could be that such couples would be very similar wrt other factors. And this says nothing about the long-term potential of such relationships.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trend...
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trend...
Because of pedigree collapse people of the same nationality don’t have to go very far back to find common ancestors. Meiosis is evidently somewhat random, but given enough pairs of people who are cousins many times over and the birthday paradox you’re going to see a lot of doppelgangers.
As someone with prosopagnosia, I'd be relying on him to recognise me. Although, he might have it too!
One of my mother's is a year younger than me. We hadn't seen each other since childhood before meeting as adults at a family event. I was more fascinated that his mannerisms so closely matched mine than that we looked so physically similar.
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I’ve wondered about this in relation to historical figures. Is there a guy walking around out there who looks exactly like Julius Caesar?
I’m not great at faces but a bunch of these don’t look all that alike to me outside of facial hair and hairstyles.
Arnold Vosloo. this my doppelgänger.
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I guess, more than the 99.9% I share with other humans…
Don’t you share DNA with like all living creatures?
Yes, of course, but that isn't an incredibly meaningful statement. Humans and bananas share about 40-50% of the same genes, but that only makes up about 1-2% of the actual DNA sequence [0]. If you think about it, sharing a significant number of genes with a banana isn't all that surprising, given that the genes are the portion of the DNA sequence that codes for proteins. Since all naturally occurring proteins are made up of the same ~20 amino acids, and you'd expect a lot of the basic "being a living organism on Earth" type proteins to at least be similar among lots of different organisms, I'd say having 1-2% of your DNA and 40-50% of your genes in common with a fruit doesn't seem too absurd.
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[0]: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/people-banana...
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[0]: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/people-banana...
We do, but you certainly share more genes with people who have lived near you for centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_distance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_distance
thisdoppelgangerdoesnotexist.com
I share DNA with blue-green algae and would hope I share a bit more with someone who looks like me.
Sure, but that's not the narrative of this research result. The narrative is that people who look similar have similar DNA- by some metric, a person clusters more closely to people who are visually similar. But, it's really hard to tease out how much of that is population structure (for example, siblings resemble each other and their parents to a high degree, and people from populations that were isolated for long periods resemble each other), and what/how much in facial structure is caused by specific genes. And what the differences are between people, genetically.
Complex phenotypes like face shapes aren't trivially determined by a single gene . Instead, the face is formed through the interactions by many gene products, and the differences in genotypes between individuals contribute in highly non-linear ways. For many years people tried to apply fairly simple reasoning (first just mendelian, then later SNPs, then copy number, then SNVs) on small numbers of genes but you can't explain all the hereditable genotype/phenotype variation without the whole genome (and possibly the epigenome).
For faces they generally noticed a bunch of changes in a subset of genes that are involved with embryonic and later development. And specific patterns of changes across multiple genes.
It's generally believed now that we could sequence millions of people and take normalized photos of their faces (see eigenfaces), sampling roughly from global population clusters in a balanced way, and build a joint genotype/phenotype embedding that would allow us to probe those complex, multivariate, non-linear rules. You would be able to do prediction and generation (given this genotype, show the most probable phenotype/face, or given this face, give a plausible genotype). Unfortunately this would be a highly politicized process makign it challenging to complete.
Complex phenotypes like face shapes aren't trivially determined by a single gene . Instead, the face is formed through the interactions by many gene products, and the differences in genotypes between individuals contribute in highly non-linear ways. For many years people tried to apply fairly simple reasoning (first just mendelian, then later SNPs, then copy number, then SNVs) on small numbers of genes but you can't explain all the hereditable genotype/phenotype variation without the whole genome (and possibly the epigenome).
For faces they generally noticed a bunch of changes in a subset of genes that are involved with embryonic and later development. And specific patterns of changes across multiple genes.
It's generally believed now that we could sequence millions of people and take normalized photos of their faces (see eigenfaces), sampling roughly from global population clusters in a balanced way, and build a joint genotype/phenotype embedding that would allow us to probe those complex, multivariate, non-linear rules. You would be able to do prediction and generation (given this genotype, show the most probable phenotype/face, or given this face, give a plausible genotype). Unfortunately this would be a highly politicized process makign it challenging to complete.
All that and a single offhanded mention of epigenetics and no mention of methylation? I would guess that people who resemble me more than the average person would not just have more of the same genes, but especially more of the same expressed genes. What do I know, though? I'm not a geneticist.
That said, though, you've typed something so unless you're sitting for the Turing test soon I'd guess you do resemble me more than a box turtle does. Knowing that features are influenced by genes, the idea that similar features imply similar genes is a very simple hypothesis to make. I'm a little puzzled why it's so interesting to test whether genetics and epigenetics influence appearance in 2022.
To me, it's near meaningless unless they start with a very strict definition of resemblance. Is it based on some measurement or someone's subjective interpretation of who looks like whom? I'm not paying $4.25 a week to read TFA and I've been told I "look like" plenty of people I don't. There are two people I know of in the world who resembled me very closely at some point in my life. One was fairly local and I disbelieved he really looked so much like me until my own aunt approached him in public and he said he'd heard the same about me. The other was a guy I knew from a BBS (actually a talker, if anyone here knows what that is) who decided he had a crush on me and sent me a photo of himself. I printed it out, held it up beside my face, and my mother asked when I had that photo taken. Freaky resemblances do exist. Should I be surprised that the people who looked like me are closer genetically and possibly in traceable genealogy than another human of another gender, another nationality, another ethnicity, another culture, and another society?
That said, though, you've typed something so unless you're sitting for the Turing test soon I'd guess you do resemble me more than a box turtle does. Knowing that features are influenced by genes, the idea that similar features imply similar genes is a very simple hypothesis to make. I'm a little puzzled why it's so interesting to test whether genetics and epigenetics influence appearance in 2022.
To me, it's near meaningless unless they start with a very strict definition of resemblance. Is it based on some measurement or someone's subjective interpretation of who looks like whom? I'm not paying $4.25 a week to read TFA and I've been told I "look like" plenty of people I don't. There are two people I know of in the world who resembled me very closely at some point in my life. One was fairly local and I disbelieved he really looked so much like me until my own aunt approached him in public and he said he'd heard the same about me. The other was a guy I knew from a BBS (actually a talker, if anyone here knows what that is) who decided he had a crush on me and sent me a photo of himself. I printed it out, held it up beside my face, and my mother asked when I had that photo taken. Freaky resemblances do exist. Should I be surprised that the people who looked like me are closer genetically and possibly in traceable genealogy than another human of another gender, another nationality, another ethnicity, another culture, and another society?
epigenetics got a lot of press a few years ago but in the long run it seems ot have a limited impact on the total variation seen in phenotype.
You are way overthinking this and going down a rabbit hole of your own making. Facial features are correlated with and coevolve with other group/tribal characteristics. See the proliferation of blonde hair, tallness in the Dutch, prevalence of epicanthic folds, stockiness of bodies in colder climes, etc...
Overthinking this? Rabbit hole? I've worked in the area for ~3 decades. I don't even understand what point you're making, beyond what I just said. We know facial features are correlated with population structure, but that's an "average" effecet. I'm saying we can predict/explain the high resolution details of individual face structure from genotype, which is not yet possible.
Okay, I've read this archive of the article. I see some resemblance in the people in the photos, but I really, seriously could tell any pair of these people apart after spending about 30 seconds with them. I might think they were siblings or cousins if I didn't know better, but they are not easily mistaken for one another like "dopplegänger" suggests. But that goes to the same point, doesn't it? That we just expect this to be true, that people who resemble one another probably do because they share some genes? It seems so much as that suspicion is confirmed could have been said without the hype running all through the article and headline.
https://archive.ph/Z9jMU
https://archive.ph/Z9jMU
You are on your own side quest to predict facial structure from genotype. That and perhaps intelligence agencies.
Your quest makes you concerned with discerning from averages. Outside your world, people don't have to be concerned with averages. Instead, they can see multiple correlated features. Perhaps a jawline, a brow, and a hairline.
Your quest makes you concerned with discerning from averages. Outside your world, people don't have to be concerned with averages. Instead, they can see multiple correlated features. Perhaps a jawline, a brow, and a hairline.
See also relatively isolated populations and how they look distinct. There are population bottlenecks, sexual selection, natural selection, etc...
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Clearly both men have European ancestry so where their parents were born doesn't matter at all. They could have at least traced Malone's parents back a little further. Given the surname you'd expect Irish ancestry which overlaps with Scottish a fair bit.