While these two babies certainly don't look anything like each other, they're actually twins. In a very rare genetic occurrence, the boys each inherited a different set of genes from their mother, who is of mixed race, Nigerian and English.
How many genetic tests do you think it took to make the parents believe that one? I certainly would have been convinced the hospital made a mistake...
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I found some more info over at snopes.com. The article mentions another such case: link:
Fertility experts speculate that a sperm containing all-white genes fused with an egg with all-white genes, and a sperm with all-black genes fused with an all-black gene egg to produce the fraternal twins.
Now compare that explanation with the one given in the linked article in your post:
A genetics expert at Oxford University says such births are rare, as the genes that cause skin color normally mix together. In this case, he says, it appears the genes for skin color didn't combine for some reason and the boys may have inherited different genetic codes from their mother.
Of course, when something like this happens, some might assume, two different men + two different eggs = twins, two different fathers. Apparently that is rare, but not as rare as one father and mixed twins due to genetics.
And there is another way it could happen. You mentioned the hospital making a mistake. For example: The world's least alike twins
The possibilities were staggering: Had the lab mixed someone else’s sperm with Wilma’s eggs? Had someone else’s egg been mixed with Willem’s sperm? Or had some other couples fertilized embyro been implanted in Wilma’s womb?
Only DNA testing would answer those questions.
The twins were nearly a year old when the tests came back: The news was at once reassuring and devastating. One of the children Wilma nurtured for nine months in her womb was theirs. But the other was not.
The main thing is that these parents still love their children, despite societal judgments that should have been long extinct.
Ray
I wholeheartedly agree that it would be great if everyone loved their children no matter whether they were biologically "theirs" or not. However, I don't think it's a societal judgment. It's genetics, and a long held species will to survive. The purpose of life is to pass its genetic code onto the next generation. When a child doesn't belong to people, sometimes their gut instinct is to abandon it and move onto one that is theirs. Of course, it would be better if they just accepted what they had, but that's just not always the case.
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