Researchers say the findings may also someday help police investigators conjure up the faces of suspects from their DNA samples. But that potential application wades into murky ethical territory
There it is
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
302 points (98.1% liked)
science
26647 readers
480 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
dart board;; science bs
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah I'm sure it will never make a mistake or be relied upon as the gospel of jesus like you see with, oh idk every single piece of technology used by police provided it aligns with their existing bias at the moment
Find a dozen people who look like suspect. Do DNA analysis on dozen "doppelgangers". Take DNA from "doppelganger" that is the closest match, present to court using "expert" witness.
Bad news for people that look like famous serial killers.
So that's why I want to make people lamp shades so bad? /s
This kinda feels like a "duh." Or a "Well, makes sense"
Genetics, I can understand. But lifestyles? How?
If different people with similar visual characteristics have similar behavioral characteristics, doesn't that imply that perhaps we can judge a book by its cover?
Yes but how much?
Strange, almost like phenotype is dependent on genotype?
You're telling me people whose genetics make them look similar have similar genetics???
Not proven until now.
These “duh” comments are always here in these situations.
We're just joking around here my friend :) of course it's important to confirm, still funny every time
I hope so, that’s good to hear. Some people seem so pissed off when making such comments about “useless” studies. 😔
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
It seems this includes genes that don't play a direct role in the formation of facial features.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I've wondered this about people who act the same. They also tend to have some of the same facial expressions and mannerisms.
Maybe like our brains have certain tempaltes of personalities that we alter along the way. A starter personality of sorts.
I mean there's this town in rural [state my family had a farm in but now we don't hallelujah farm work is hard] that everyone looks like me because, well, go back far enough and all 500 of them and me are related. First time I went to the old farm it was frightening. Like walking into a clone factory.
There are only so many permutations of topological entanglement!
7 colors × 6 directions = 42 types of individual entanglement within the topological matrix we are not IN but rather ARE
How similar is DNA from convergent evolution animals?
I mean, my uncle (who spent very little time with his bio father) has all the same mannerisms as him. As do I and my mother and one of my brothers. Some of it is that we inherited similar skeletal structure so our posture is similar. Some of it, I dunno.
well, at some point, everything is a crab.
so I would assume pretty similar.
great question though.
DNA has a limited number of genes. Considering the enormous amount of functions they need to encode, the number of genes for each function becomes relatively small. 8 billion people and thousands of generations, we’re bound to have duplicates.
I would say it's even smaller in number. Because some combinations would not work and might kill you.
Yes, but the article says that certain combinations occur more often that if it was random. People with similar faces tend to have similar genes that are nor related to facial features.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I always wondered about this in terms of I have known some types of folks that look similar and actually often have similar social traits and this includes me to.
Or maybe we're living in a simulation and whatever is generating it only has a finite number of characters. 😲
...We all look like 98% similar.
@RegularJoe I'm curious about how this might work across ethnicities. I can't point to a photo, but several times, I've noticed people from other continents who could easily be someone I know here, except they're African, or Asian, when the person I know is white, just for example. Under the expected differences in hair, eyes, etc, the basic facial structure is the same. A DNA match seems less likely in these cases.
I don't have a great answer other than of the 32 studied, these were their stratification:
Related to population stratification, among the 16 look-alike pairs, 13 were of European ancestry, 1 Hispanic, 1 East Asian, and 1 Central-South Asian.
Source: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(22)01075-0
But whether people who look close enough to perform as another, such as the "Chinese Obama" (Xiao Jiguo) I can't say.
Then there's Indonesia's former president, Joko Widodo:
https://nextshark.com/people-love-indonesias-president-looks-like-barack-obama
It would be interesting to get the researchers to analyze their DNA.
@RegularJoe thank you! This is quite interesting. I'd forgotten about the celebrity look-alikes you mentioned. I'm not surprised the studies aren't there.
I don't think it's about a DNA match. Those people you mention could share more DNA than the rest of us, which could account for their similarities, but their DNA will never "match" anyone else's.
load more comments
(1 replies)
So should you avoid having kids with someone you look similar too then? Like is it that the virtual twins have genetic similarities akin to 3rd cousins or siblings...
This is why my sister and I always use protection.
I mean, iirc there’s no genetic reason first cousins shouldn’t have kids, I doubt third cousins would be a problem.
First cousins not having kids is generally good since it prevents the founder effect from getting too bad or long term inbreeding like with Charles of Spain or really any European royal.
Thats plain rediculous. How can I possibly find someone good enough looking then?
view more: next ›