How can we still tell some identical twins apart if they have the same genes and are supposed to look exactly the same?

Question

My uncles are identical twins and I can easily distinguish them, even in baby pictures. How can this variation exist?

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Answer 1

> How can we still tell some identical twins apart if they have the same genes and are supposed to look exactly the same?

That is an incorrect assumption.

First, the genes are not necessarily identical because there can be mutations, but that is not why you can tell them apart.

It is “are supposed to look exactly the same?” that is the problem. The genes control how the body grows but do not contain exact information about the body configuration of cells. The body growing induction is more of a recipe and exactly what the result has a small variation.

Look at your own skin, and its exact structure, where you have hair follicles, birth marks etc. It is not uniform pattern, it is create but process with small variations in the result.

So the practically identical genes result in two babies that are quite similar but not identical.