I remember a surgeon who does a lot of transplantation (and where they have to check DNA for compatibility), telling me that it also depends a lot on which child. The first child is almost always from the father. Second child a bit less. Third child is where there is a significant percentage of outside interference. To the point that they discourage same family donors as it creates a lot of drama.
How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
21–30 of 99 posts
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's fair to say that there is a subset of people for whom this kind of thing does border on obsession. By analogy, it's normal to care about your weight, but it's still possible for that normal concern to become an anxious obsession that gets blown way out of proportion.
In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.
>In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing...
Theres no obsession here, the author was being needlessly hyperbolical to twist the narrative as if the normal behavior of thinking about paternity makes one "obsessive". The way he phrased it makes it sound like it's normal for the paternal side not to care if he's raising his own kin or not.
>Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.
DAN tests without your partner's consent or a court order, are not legal in several countries, like France for example. So you might never know if your partner doesn't want you to know or you don't have proof of adultery to show the court.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#23Back when I used to do pedigree analysis, the general rule of thumb was 1/10 chance that the father wasn't what was stated in the pedigree. You would run the analysis and get absolute nonsense results, and then you'd swap a father for an uncle, or a mother for her daughter, and the alleles would all just suddenly line up. We would never tell the families, and since the pedigrees were anonymized before being published…
What is nuts is that in some countries, its illegal for the father to unilaterally have a paternity test done. I know for France that if you have it done unilaterally and thus illegally you are still on the hook for child support until a legal test is done, which either the mother needs to agree to or needs to be agreed on by the court.
IMO a paternity test should just be mandated to be done immediately at birth (or earlier even?). It avoids the tinge of distrust of "oh wow, how could you even think that of me?!" from the mother, whilst giving certainty to the man.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's fair to say that there is a subset of people for whom this kind of thing does border on obsession. By analogy, it's normal to care about your weight, but it's still possible for that normal concern to become an anxious obsession that gets blown way out of proportion.
In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.
> In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing...
The version of this I've seen most often has been certain Very Online groups who are convinced that if they have kids they'll turn out to secretly be someone else's.
They can't test that hypothesis because it's directly interfering with the conditions that would enable them to test it.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#25The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.
It may be normal, but is it productive? What will you do? Stop loving your child, punish the mother? You may be better off not knowing the answer and being OK with that.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#26There's lots of variations across cultures. You could make the (lazy) generalization that men do not want to invest in propagating genes belonging to another man. But then the Himba have a high level of extra-pair paternity (EPP). How does this make sense evolutionarily? Maybe a high level of EPP means that more members of the community share your genes? Which gives you an incentive to care for offspring that are fat…
I am.wondering though, would a more kinship based society be less tolerant ofotherness/outgroup ?
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#27The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.
It may be normal, but is it productive? What will you do? Stop loving your child, punish the mother? You may be better off not knowing the answer and being OK with that.
It is reasonable to know if your partner can be trusted, yes.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#28Back when I used to do pedigree analysis, the general rule of thumb was 1/10 chance that the father wasn't what was stated in the pedigree. You would run the analysis and get absolute nonsense results, and then you'd swap a father for an uncle, or a mother for her daughter, and the alleles would all just suddenly line up. We would never tell the families, and since the pedigrees were anonymized before being published…
What is nuts is that in some countries, its illegal for the father to unilaterally have a paternity test done. I know for France that if you have it done unilaterally and thus illegally you are still on the hook for child support until a legal test is done, which either the mother needs to agree to or needs to be agreed on by the court. IMO a paternity test should just be mandated to be done immediately at birth (or…
I disagree here. Blood tests done at birth are done specifically for the benefit of the child (and with minimal risk to the child). A paternity test has no benefit for the child (it doesn't tell you who the father is, simply who the father isn't) and a ~1% risk of harm to the child.
The period immediately after birth is one of the most dangerous times for children, and we (should) specifically take action to protect them in a moment where they are at risk and have no agency. A paternity test would increase the risk of harm to the child (either through violence, deprivation, or neglect). We didn't even get to the subject of possible violence against the mother either, which is likely.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#29Back when I used to do pedigree analysis, the general rule of thumb was 1/10 chance that the father wasn't what was stated in the pedigree. You would run the analysis and get absolute nonsense results, and then you'd swap a father for an uncle, or a mother for her daughter, and the alleles would all just suddenly line up. We would never tell the families, and since the pedigrees were anonymized before being published…
Thanks, that answers my questions about how pedigrees were preprocessed for a study like this:
1. Isn’t there a very high chance any particular male’s result is true for both father and uncle?
2. For young teen mothers, sometimes a family of older mother and two assumed siblings is really grandmother, mother, child. Paternity and slightly maternity are secretly, generationally obscured. So two assumed female siblings might share less than half-sibling measures of autosomal DNA.
Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.
>In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Theres no obsession here, the author was being needlessly hyperbolical to twist the narrative as if the normal behavior of thinking about paternity makes one "obsessive". The way he phrased it makes it sound like it's normal for the paternal side not to care if he's raising his own kin or not. >Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over. D…
Those who would be obsessed would totally grab a bit of hair and mail it off to some country where such things are legal and get the answer in an email...