John Ray again takes issue with researchers inane conclusions. In this instance he cites an Australian news article concerning a study of the cognitive cost of being a twin.

The news article states, "Twins may be livewires but they are certainly not bright sparks, according to new research showing that they have lower IQs than single children."

Well, there is certainly no debate there! Dr. Ray, however, gives his own logic as to why this is true:

"These guys [researchers] must know twins only via columns of numbers about them. Anybody who has helped bring up twins -- as I have -- will know perfectly well what the problem is -- and it is "none of the above". What happens is that twins do not need others for social support as much as singletons do, so they develop language skills primarily to talk to one-another. But because of their similar age and situation, even dizygotic (fraternal) twins tend to understand one-another with a much reduced use of adult language. They to a degree develop a private and largely non-verbal language of their own. So they have much less incentive to develop adult language skills and are therefore slower to develop such skills. And language skills are a central part of IQ development."

Now I understand why Todd and Lance regularly complain about the obtuseness of my writing. I simply must encourage them to develop adult language skills. I guess I just never really understood how much they had actually retarded one another.

My apologies, guys!