A Summary: Why do identical twins end up having such different Lives?

Twins seem, on the outside, to be very similar and identical. But when you meet each one and get to know them, you realize they are very different from each other. The question is: Why? Is it the environment? But they have lived in the same house, mostly likely experienced similar things, and ate parallel foods for the first 18 years of their lives. For example, in one pair of twins, one sister is very confident, has been married, and has a very different fashion sense than that her twin who has serious depression issues, is more conscientious, been divorced, and suffered from leukemia. They’re still twins, but very different lives.

            Scientists have discovered that this difference in lives is due to epigenetics in the human epigenome. Epigenetics is the mechanism where environmental changes alter the behavior of our genes. Specifically, methyl, a chemical within our cells, can attach itself to our DNA and can turn down or up the activity of a gene and stop it from making certain proteins. Levels can fluctuate with all different kinds of life events like aging, diet, illness, chemicals, smoking, drugs, medications and more. So the reason these twins are so different is because some of their genes have been switched on in one case and off in another. Some are positive affects, and some are negative, like depression and susceptibility to diseases. 

Homicide; An Adaptive Behavior?

___________Is Homicide an Adaptive Behavior?_____________________

Homicide; why people do it, how they do it, and what kind of people can, are all questions that have caused controversy ever since history was first written down. Still, one has yet to be answered: Is homicide an adaptive behavior? Yes and No.

The Homicide Adaptive Theory is a theory that gives ideas, never prove, that homicide is an evolutionary tool in our genes that helped us stay alive thousands of years ago. This theory explains that humans have always and will always commit homicide. The ideas in this theory is that humans commit homicide for good reason like to protect kin of the same genetic inheritance from others so that they can pass on their genes. Humans would have had to kill in general for food resources and protection. Potential rivals would had to have been terminated to make sure they on only them could pass on their genes. Killing stepchildren was also necessary to ensure their own children would get enough resources. The list goes on and these are all very good reasons to keep the gene for homicide in our genes. Obviously these aspects don’t apply to us any more. We have supermarkets, houses and a large range of resources. That doesn’t mean that that gene won’t show up any more. This gene is still in us and will be for a very long time. Evolutionary, we will eventually no longer need it. But there may still be aspects of homicide that are slightly adaptive.

Everyone has killed that annoying fly or spider in your room but can everyone kill another human being with children, a life, a past and future? Definitely not.

Trained soldiers who have taught themselves to effectively and efficiently kill many people still have a hard time in even in times of need when their life DEPENDED on it, they still could bring themselves to do it. On the other hand many people still do kill hundreds without another though. They ADAPT and change so that they can. It depends on the person and their type of personality and abilities. Maybe that gene of violently killing without a thought has had the volume “turned down” in some people and “turned up” in others. But that gene will always be in us, to kill.

Homicide will always be questioned as to how, why, and when and there are two sides to it as well. The side were it’s engrained into our genes and we can’t not do it. And the side that indicates that it’s adaptive from our surroundings depending on who raises us and what we see. Both ideas are possible and both can never be fully proven or disproved.