Tonight, the National Geographic Channel visits a rural Brazilian town where "the 80 households in a one-square-mile area have reportedly some 38 pairs of twins. Blond, blue-eyed twins." Nat Geo then attempts to trace rumors connecting that creepy phenomenon to Nazi medical monster Joseph Mengele, who was on the lam in Brazil in the 1950s. I'm not sure I've seen a Nat Geo special that inspired this strong of a, "No, really, you're making this up, right?" response. I'm curious whether they turn up anything definitive, or whether this just ends up being a lot of speculation. Sadly, I don't have cable, so I probably won't find out. If anybody watches it, let me know what you think.
National Geographic Channel: Nazi Mystery: Twins From Brazil
RSS Feed
Oh, that kind of nightmare.
Simone: Do you have any dreams?
PeeWee: I'm all alone. I'm rolling a big doughnut
and a snake wearing a vest...
Simone: No, not that kind of dream.
I'm just waiting for when they remake the movie -- I mean they've remade everything *else* from the 1970s. They could maybe incorporate these twins in the remake the way that other remakes update themselves by adding references to mad cow disease and so forth.
I watched this on Sunday night, it was interesting. The final word from the show...the town's twins are more likely the results of being isolated, the town being founded by only 8 people the the magic that is genetics...I'm terribly sorry if I spoiled this for anyone!
Sneaky. Actually trying to teach the audience science after roping them in with lurid conspiracy theory...
Sneaky. Actually trying to teach the audience science after roping them in with lurid conspiracy theory...
Why doesn't Rupert just change the name to Fox National Geographic channel already?
This looks like a very interesting documentary, but "Nat Geo" for the most part has turned quite lame.
I turned the documentary on and was immediately skeptical. I saved myself 55 minutes by reading this article:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091125-nazi-twins-brazil-mengele.html
Dr. Steinman? I wonder if the "mad doctor" character in
Bioshock was named after this man.
No cable? Look for it as a torrent. It's not just crap pop songs that people can download.
true. if this episode of national geographic isn't available, i would suggest checking out Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice
Thanks, cornballer. It was a great article. I watched the show, too, but the article helped provide a bit more context that I gleaned from just watching.
Short version: Mengele was too busy hiding to do much of anything else, and the twin rates are likely genetic. The town was formed by only 8 families, one of which carried a gene to have a lot of twins.
It wasn't a bad watch, though they could have toned down the sensationalism a bit. I mean, one town with a twin rate a thousand times the world average probably ought to be investigated.
Johnathan Vrozos of the clan of the Northern Hemisphere found this article title very interesting.
However, the content of the video was very disappointing as it was aimlessly floating in an ocean of going nowhere.
Tying into the Nazis was a clever way of getting some viewers, period.
Ran across this a couple of days ago:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-30/the-nazi-twin-myth/
Always worth pointing out, for every "advance" that was claimed about secret Nazi science, their work was often mired in psuedo-science, bad methodology and of course a complete lack of human decency.
The Respectful Insolence blog did a nice post on this not too long ago. One point they make is how the Nazis identified a link between cancer and cigarettes years ahead of time leading to a "War on Cancer" but they also embraced "alternative medicine" at the whims of the party to promote German folk cures.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/12/was_nazi_science_good_science.php
In short, I'd quote the distinguished Dr. I. Jones who quipped in 1939 " Nazis. I hate these guys."
While it is true that the Nazi sciences were varied and sometimes a little nebulous, it is also true that the US government would have sold their own mother(and sometimes did), to get at these Nazi scientists. and yhey had to race against the Russians in doing so.
Lots of Germans moved to S. America between 1874 and even during World War II. Remember, the Americans only entered near the middle. So the idea of Mengele being smart enough to skip out early and hide in South America isn't a crazy one. He wouldn't have needed to do monstrous experiments, just some Punnet square stuff and get certain people to have sex.
The Nazi was smart but evil. And it's a good thing we destroyed them.
The problem with calling things "Nazi Science" is that covers a lot of things. Obviously the Germans were very good at certain things like rocketry, and yes, the US did everything it could to get people like Von Braun after the war. But despite the uncomfortable fact that slave labor was used at the rocket lab in Peenemünde, it was real science as Londoners attacked by V2 rockets could attest. The stuff that Mengele did wasn't just unethical, it literally didn't make any sense -- the myth that "The Boys from Brazil" and the lead in for this special use is that Mengele wasn't just evil but some sort of genius who knew molecular biology before it was invented, and that's just silly.
I know I'm late to the commenting party but I'm surprised no one has mentioned the nightmare that is the Cândido Godói Cuckoos.