Abstract
The twin method is usually credited to Francis Galton's 1875 article on twins. However, Galton did not propose the comparison between identical and fraternal twin resemblance which is the essence of the twin method. Although the twin method was “in the air” in the mid-1920s, the first descriptions of the method appeared in an article by Curtis Merriman and in a book by Hermann Siemens, both in 1924, 50 years after Galton's paper.
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Preparation of this article was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-10333 and HD-18426), the National Science Foundation (BSN-8806589), and the Successful Aging program of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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Rende, R.D., Plomin, R. & Vandenberg, S.G. Who discovered the twin method?. Behav Genet 20, 277–285 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067795
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067795