CANADA: Believe it or not, but scientists say that statistically, every person has roughly six living doppelgangers wandering the planet. If you’re fortunate enough to meet yours in this lifetime, you might get along well with them. According to a recent study, even people who look exactly like us share some of our genes and characteristics.
Research on Doppelgangers
32 unrelated pairs of doppelgangers were selected for the study, published this week in the journal Cell Reports, from an ongoing photography project by Canadian artist François Brunelle, who has been looking for and photographing doppelgangers since 1999.
The individuals’ degree of similarity was then calculated using artificial intelligence, and DNA tests and lifestyle interviews with the pairs of participants were also conducted.
According to The New York Times, 16 of the 32 pairs had facial characteristics comparable to those of identical twins, making them “genuine” doppelgangers. The 16 full doppelgangers had significantly more genes in common than the other participants, indicating that DNA is a stronger determinant of how we turn out than environmental variables, according to the Times.
It also makes sense that people who share the same physical features would have more in common with one another’s personalities, given that, as studies have shown, our genes influence our temperament.
But, equating a person’s appearance with their personality entails risks (racism). Sources noted that law enforcement could rebuild a suspect’s appearance using DNA in the field of forensics, which might be disastrous for persons of colour.
Even if the person doesn’t resemble them, many minorities have experienced being mistaken for someone of their race, and the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement is already troublesome.
It’s unclear how frequently mistaken identity situations, which already disproportionately affect people of colour, would occur if we began utilising badly recreated faces from DNA to identify crime suspects.
Positively, by examining the illnesses of people who resemble us, doctors may be able to predict the types of health issues we may suffer in the future due to our genetic similarity, according to the reports.
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