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How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

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Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#71

Post by jorvi »

gmane wrote: post #51
jorvi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A stronger argument in line with the "benefit of the child" thinking would be that slight domestic violence should no longer be grounds for divorce since divorce rarely benefits the child. Which is obviously a crazy line of thinking, but so is "let's force a man to (financially) raise a child that isn't his".

That’s not even my argument though? I was very clear that specifically immediately post birth is a high risk time and that mandatory paternity tests at birth increase those risks with little to no benefit to anyone. I did not say anything about forcing a man to raise a child.

.. you do realize a paternity test can happen with just a cotton swab? And aside from that, they already get a heel prick / blood spot test to check for a bunch of things. Drawing a tiny bit of extra blood from that in no way presents any extra danger to the baby.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#72

Post by tetris11 »

ttyprintk wrote: post #56
tetris11 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a while and I was always a bit shaky on the actual genetics, so hopefully an actual expert can weigh in here, but as far as I remember - For 1 it depends on the penetrance model (a score on whether all individuals with the disease allele(s) express the disease phenotype: 1=all, 0.5=some, etc.) along with whether the allele's mode of inheritance is recessive/dominant, X-linked or not, and how consanguineous/…

Awesome, I appreciate that. Ok so my question for the researcher would be: 1. Circumstances where both mtDNA and Y chromosome are shared between biological father and pedigreed father. I think the Biblical term is Levirate marriage. 2. Circumstances without Y where maternity is secretly disputable and paternity uncontentious. I think the researcher called this secret adoption. At distances longer than several generat…

I'd argue that after 5 generations your descendants only have (0.5^5) no more than 3% of your genetic material, and if there's some ambiguity to one of your founders (say who has a 50% similarity to the one stated in the pedigree) then that drops to 1% (rounding down).

1% of the human genome (3billion bp) is still 30M bases, which could easily contain 1 or 2 genes which you may have genotyped, depending on the resolution of your genotyping chip (usually 10M markers spread out over the entire genome, and usually clustered around variants/genes of interest).

So yeah, even 5 generations down these differences could be detected at the variant level. Even at 10, you could still _theoretically_ find differences.

I stress theoretically, because the chance of you having all the individuals from a pedigree genotyped at the same time using the same tech (and thus the same subset of common genotypes to compare) is slim to none.

I'd say 5 generations is a rough rule of thumb where the signal is not that much higher than the noise.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#73

Post by FirmwareBurner »

thefz wrote: post #70
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale is that apparently due to rampant adultery a lot more fathers than previously thought are raising another man's kids without knowing it (apparently about 10% last time I read about it, also on HN) and since raising kids to adulthood is very expensive and so if the men could easily find out their kids are not their own, then the man can legally opt-out of that financial responsibility then the French sta…

> then the French state/taxpayer has to pick up the tab for the mother's adultery Why not the biological father? That would make sense.

How would the state force the mother to track down the men she slept with and get them to do paternity tests to prove they're the ones responsible to pay child support? Sometimes the father can be from a different country.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#74

Post by bitshiftfaced »

> Even in Europe, people regularly make decisions that belie the view that paternity and parenting is primarily a biological investment, including caring for stepchildren, adoption, and fostering. “There’s no genetic kinship there, and people are investing resources in children who are not related to them at all,” Jobling says. “I’m a bit skeptical of applying these sociobiological ideas to human behavior. I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

Here's a thought: maybe it has to do with consent?

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#75

Post by bitshiftfaced »

gmane wrote: post #28
jorvi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't the marginal risk from the blood test be zero, since they do a little blood prick on their foot anyway?

Also, there's a second order effect you're ignoring: a mandated paternity test would change expectant mothers' behavior leading up to the birth. You wouldn't try to dupe someone if you knew you'd be found out. Or, if you weren't sure, you'd more likely be transparent.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#76

Post by Thiez »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #40
londons_explore wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Of course you can, but how many courts will side with you based on unlawfully obtained evidence?

At least if you turn out to be the father you can put the issue to rest. If not, you can pursue parallel construction somehow.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#77

Post by gggtttkkk88 »

gmane wrote: post #52
gggtttkkk88 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No chance, bucko. The essence of your comment is that paternity testing should be avoided because there is no benefit to children and there is potential harm to women. Your focus was not on the mandatory nature of any such testing. And I believe you understand my analogy in spite of your faux confusion and outrage.

That’s not even my argument though? I was very clear that specifically immediately post birth is a high risk time and that mandatory paternity tests at birth increase those risks with little to no benefit to anyone. I did not say anything about forcing a man to raise a child. You’re deliberately misreading my point to argue against a straw man.

Are you gaslighting? Your comment is just above, you can reread it as many times as I have trying to extract any other argument with as little success.

The benefit is to the "father", obviously, in confirming paternity or alerting him of infidelity and fraud. It's either peace of mind or potentially life-changing. The benefit is incalculable.

Your only arguments for why immediately post-birth is a poor time are that it would be convenient for everyone else (including the perpetrator of the fraud) if the victim was unaware and continued to be exploited for some time (how long? when would be a convenient time for the reveal?). That is outrageous.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#78

Post by Thiez »

123yawaworht456 wrote: post #67
lores wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A human being is not a car, and your reference to 'emasculation' is very worrying.

[flagged]

This 'random kid' stuff is absurd. The child is five or older. For all these years you have been calling it 'my son' or 'my daughter', and it has been calling you 'papa' or 'dad'. You've changed its diapers, sang it to sleep, fed it, clothed it, played with it, taught it words, hugged it after a bad dream. You are its world.

If after all that time it turns out to be not genetically yours I'm sure that hurts. Probably hurts a lot, if it's a betrayal by your partner.

But to pretend that it is in any way the same thing as the government assigning you 'a completely random child' is an absurd hyperbole. Five+ years is a decently long time to be (or think to be) someones father, but for the child that is literally its whole life.

So tell me, if it turns out after 5 years your child isn't biologically yours, you would just abandon it? It's been a nice few years but now it's over, leave to buy cigaretes and never return? And you think remaining its father is the un-manly thing to do? That sounds completely insane to me.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#79

Post by mcphage »

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #75
gmane wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't the marginal risk from the blood test be zero, since they do a little blood prick on their foot anyway? Also, there's a second order effect you're ignoring: a mandated paternity test would change expectant mothers' behavior leading up to the birth. You wouldn't try to dupe someone if you knew you'd be found out. Or, if you weren't sure, you'd more likely be transparent.

> Wouldn't the marginal risk from the blood test be zero, since they do a little blood prick on their foot anyway?

The source of risk isn't performing the test, the source of risk is the father getting upset and killing the mother and/or child.

Re: How often are children genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers?

#80

Post by FirmwareBurner »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #61
benterix wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. But obviously people do it anyway: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/french-men-s-insecurity-over... The only problem is, after you've done it, and it turns out the child is not yours, you have two problems.

> In France, a country where infidelity is more often regarded as pleasure than sin, the percentage may be higher. No wonder France decided to ban the tests

EU freedom of speech attitude in a nutshell: when the truth is uncomfortable, you just ban it. Problem solved.
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