Professor Jeff Craig: Australia's Most Identical: It's The Closest Relationship Known To Man

Professor Jeff Craig joined Clairsy & Lisa on the show to chat all things twins ahead of  ‘Australia’s Most Identical’ on Channel 9. The guys had A LOT of questions for the professor with twin telepathy and other twin phenomena getting a look in. Tune in to find out more.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Australia's Most Identical is on seven thirty tonight on nine
and nine Now. Episode two will follow Strata on tomorrow night,
and Australia's preeminent expert in twins, Professor Jeff Craig, is
with us.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, Jeff, I'm good morning to love of you.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
This is a fascinating subject. Both of us have always felt, Professor,
how many pregnancies result in twins?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, it's actually about one in seventies. There's quite a
lot in thirty five. Yeah, one in thirty five Australians
is a twin.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Wow. I would never have thought it was that many. Yeah,
one in thirty five.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Hey, Jeff, can you tell us? Yeah, can you tell
us about?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Can you tell us about what we're going to hear
about on the show and see.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh, it's really fascinating. You know. We took one hundred
twin pairs and we I had actually fun helping to
design the scientific experiments, if you like. Our questionnaires test
how identical the twins were, and there's everything from three
D facial recognition to quick fire questions to whether they

(01:09):
act the same in in in the same situation but
split but split together and they the twins themselves. The
other twins vote on each round who did best.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
What's the difference between fraternal twin and identical twins.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Fraternal twins is a result of two fertilization events, So
you have two two embryos growing together side by side.
With identical twins, you get one fertilization event and then
that splits and we still don't know why. And so

(01:49):
the DNA is the same in identical twins because it's
just splitting very early on, and in fraternal twins it's
genetically as similar as any two sibl from the same family.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Wo how many birth is miraculous, But that is even more.
It's just freaky, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
It is miraculous. I am so curious about you hear
about twin telepathy. You know, you hear about someone hurts
themselves and then the other twin it doesn't even know
it's happened on the other side of the country, or
something fills a twine. Is that? What on earth is
going on?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
There?

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Is that a real thing?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well from the twins perspective, it is the real thing,
because you know, twins have told me some of their
experiences yea. And the way that The way that science
explains it is that they have twins other special bond.
They've been together since in the world day zero in

(02:46):
the wom and they've had this shared life together, shared experience,
and with and with identical twins, shared genetics, so so
much is shared that they end up reacting the same
way to the same situation. And I think the of course,
some twins do have this unexplainable experience that you know,

(03:11):
even if they live across the country. One of them says, oh,
you know, I've suddenly felt pain in my leg, and
then my twin caught me up and said I've broken it.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, And so I can't deny it.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
We can't, We mustn't deny it. It's a it's a
real experience, but we so we can explain some of
it by the shared experience. It's almost like, you know,
those people in the audience that have been married many years,
they can almost get each other respond and gets each
other what each other's going to say to a certain question. Sure,
but twins it's even more so. It's the closest relationship

(03:45):
known to man. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
I can't let the moment go without saying, Lisa, Sure,
twins feel the twins from other well done, you can
go home.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Professor.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Can you tell us about the pair of teachers here
in the west of It and Linda? What about the
among the show? They're part of a of what twenty twins?
I believe, well, I.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Mean that they started as as as one of one
hundred and I met them there bottom. They're amazing, amazing twins.
They're just kind of naturals in front of the camera.
They're so genuine. They're ex their ex teachers, they're retired,
and they're just so genuine. They look they look identical,

(04:26):
but through you know the but all the tests be
put them through, you will see how sometimes they're identical
and sometimes they're not always the same.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Well, this is going to be a fascinating look at
a twins. I just hope they're not all dressed. I disturbing,
ID have been disturbing my adult twins dress the sign
But Hi, that's just me. It's on tonight at seven
point thirty on Channel nine and then straight into episode
two tomorrow night. Professor Jeff Craig, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Thank you, professor.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Oh no worries