Anecdotal twin coincidences can be misleading without proper statistics

Evidence

I first learned of the Minnesota Twin Study while watching the NBC Nightly News in 1986. The presentation was sensational: all these identical twins who had been raised apart had been tracked down and discovered to have lived very similar lives. Two had been given the name Jim, for instance, married (and divorced) women named Linda, then married a Betty, and so on. Since I lecture in introductory psychology on the misinterpretation of coincidence, I was thoroughly turned off. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 891

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s interest in how coincidence and apophenia distort perception of data patterns.
• CANDY: The Jim/Jim/Linda/Betty coincidence is a delightful, easily-retold cautionary anecdote about reading too much into coincidence.