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EconTalk · 2026-01-19 · 65 min · 10,407 words

Nature, Nurture, and Identical Twins (with David Bessis)

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Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.

We'd love to hear from you. Today is December 22nd, 2025. Before introducing today's guest, I want to remind listeners Go to econtalk.org and vote on your favorite episodes of 2025. And now for today's guest, mathematician and author David Bessis.

He was last here in October of 2025 discussing his marvelous book, Mathematica. Our topic for today is a provocative essay from his Substack that we will link to. Title of that essay, Twins Reared Apart do Not Exist. The shaky science of genetic determinism. David, welcome back to Econ Talk.

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