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Your dad might not be your dad
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| trancaholic |
From scotsman.com
| quote: | Thousands of families living a lie
ABOUT one in 25 fathers might be unknowingly raising another man's child, new research has shown.
Opening the "Pandora's Box" of false paternity was necessary because of increased use of DNA profiling and genetic testing in organ donation and criminal investigations, scientists who led the research said.
Professor Mark Bellis, of John Moores University Liverpool, and his team examined a wide range of international studies looking at estimates of paternal discrepancy between 1950 and 2004. They found that the number of cases where a man was not the biological father of his child ranged from 1 per cent to as much as 30 per cent.
Experts have generally agreed that the rate is below 10 per cent, with a 4 per cent rate meaning that about one in 25 families might be affected, the study said. But the researchers, writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, said that increased use of genetic testing for diagnosis, treatment and identification was likely to boost the rates of paternal discrepancy.
Prof Bellis said that as genetic testing was now widespread, it was important to realise the true number of people who might be affected by the results and to provide support.
He said: "The Pandora's Box is open now by the introduction of genetic testing.
"Thousands of people use these services to find the truth out. We do not know the exact numbers of people with different fathers, but that does not mean it is not important to know how many people could be potentially affected."
There are about 20,000 paternity tests carried out in the UK each year. David Blunkett, the Work and Pensions Secretary, underwent a paternity test which showed that he had not fathered a child by his former lover Kimberly Quinn.
However, the actress Liz Hurley proved that the billionaire Steve Bing was the father of their son, Damien.
Crucial Genetics based at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow is an accredited paternity testing centre. It carries out about 3,500 paternity tests a year at a cost of £399 per test.
Max Hamilton, the company's business development manager, said the number of tests has "definitely increased" since it was set up in 2001. He said most tests were to determine paternity for legal reasons during a divorce. Others are for medical reasons, or simply for "peace of mind".
He continued: "There is no uncertainty in what we do. It is 99.9 per cent accurate."
The company takes DNA from the mother, father and child and requires permission from all three parties. The tests are either taken at the clinic or sent to a medical professional.
However, many paternity tests available on the internet or through less reputable companies do not bother to gain permission from all those involved and even offer home-testing kits. These tests range from about £100 and are often sent away to laboratories in China or the United States.
One Parent Family Scotland is often left picking up the pieces after a paternity test.
Ian Maxwell, the deputy director, said people needed to know the practical implications of such tests - the financial responsibility of the real father and his right to see the child, as well as the psychological impact.
Many of the families needed counselling to deal with the results, he said.
"Once you find out whose the child is, it is only the start. If you have tested positive as a parent or a child, you have all sorts of issues to cope with," he added. |
So assuming that we're about 20 active participants in here, that means that there's a 56% chance that at least one of us has the wrong dad. Hmmm.:eyespop:
To me, what matters is who raised me, though. I don't get the fuzz about biological ties. |
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| St_Andrew |
Wow, thats cool. Who knows, perhaps my dad is some uber rich guy with a large aparment waiting for me on manhattan :p
no but really, i wouldnt abandon my dad that raised me for anyone. |
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| Q5echo |
i've been wondering about this myself.
...but i'm pretty sure i'm Cyrus King's dad. there, i said it. |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
i've been wondering about this myself.
...but i'm pretty sure i'm Cyrus King's dad. there, i said it. |
:stongue: |
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| josh4 |
| I think this mostly applies to people below a certain income level... |
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| HardTranceProd |
It applies to all income levels, all ethnicities and socio-economic groups and races.
There is a very well-known and understood evolutionary principle here that many don't know about.
From the evolutionary point of view, it makes a lot of sense for a woman to bear one man's child but raise the child with another man. It gets her the best of both worlds: security/protection provided by the "nice, stable guy" and the superb genes from the "hot bad boy."
She gets the good DNA for her baby and the stability/financial income at the same time. If you read any book on evolutionary psychology, you'll see this phenomenon explained.
While this fact is 'shocking' to some - err - members of academia, it's common knowledge in many small towns where everyone knows what's going. In big communities it's not as obvious. |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
It applies to all income levels, all ethnicities and socio-economic groups and races.
[quote]There is a very well-known and understood evolutionary principle here that many don't know about. |
If it's so well known, why don't many people know about it? me if I've ever heard stats like that, though I'd be curious to see the specific data/sample populations that were used in the good doc's studies. Call me a skeptic.
| quote: | | From the evolutionary point of view, it makes a lot of sense for a woman to bear one man's child but raise the child with another man. It gets her the best of both worlds: security/protection provided by the "nice, stable guy" and the superb genes from the "hot bad boy." |
Is it really that pervasive? I mean I know there is a high divorce rate in this country, but I never realized so many women were cheating so early. I'm going to have to lock my wife in the attic!
| quote: | | She gets the good DNA for her baby and the stability/financial income at the same time. If you read any book on evolutionary psychology, you'll see this phenomenon explained. |
Phew. Lucky for her I'm a 1-stop shop for all-of-your-Freudian-Id-fart needs and desires! I am curious about the book, who is the author? Is it a factual document or a theoretical explanation using corollary data as supporting evidence?
| quote: | | While this fact is 'shocking' to some - err - members of academia, it's common knowledge in many small towns where everyone knows what's going. In big communities it's not as obvious. |
So you're really saying that there is a lot of incestral inbreeding in small, isolated, likely rural or simply isolated as like eskimos, so they have a very small pool of genes floating around for a lot of ice fisherman....
Or maybe Utah.
But up top you said:
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
It applies to all income levels, all ethnicities and socio-economic groups and races. |
So is there a big exception to the rule here? Or is the exception The Rule?
:conf: |
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| Lira |
Motherhood is a certainty, fatherhood is a possibility :D
I'd be pissed right off at my mother though if it were the case. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
It applies to all income levels, all ethnicities and socio-economic groups and races.
There is a very well-known and understood evolutionary principle here that many don't know about.
From the evolutionary point of view, it makes a lot of sense for a woman to bear one man's child but raise the child with another man. It gets her the best of both worlds: security/protection provided by the "nice, stable guy" and the superb genes from the "hot bad boy." |
You do know this doesn't make sense, right? |
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| HardTranceProd |
It doesn't make sense to people who don't understand evolution.
Read any book, this one for example:
"Introducing Evolutionary Psychology"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846
You can be denial all you want, it doesn't make a bit of difference. Reality is what it is.
"...Both males and females use long-term and short-term mating strategies. For males, the short-term mating strategy involves having sex with a woman and then abandoning her to look after the baby.
But females also derive advantages from casual sex. An ancestral woman who was already in a long-term relationship might have had casual sex wiith other men and then passed the resulting children off as her partner's.
This "cuckold strategy" gets a woman the best of both worlds: A diverse mix of genes from her various lovers -- and the resources of her doting partner..."
BTW an American doctor unexpectedly discovered this in the 50's at a hospital in a well-to-do, influential neighborhood. He was so shocked by the results (remember, we're talking the 50s) that he filed them away forever (they were re-discovered recently). |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
It doesn't make sense to people who don't understand evolution. |
I do understand evolution, but the reasonings you've been mentioning are extremely flawed, it's almost like religious science: you don't find something and get to a conclusion, you find something to get to a pre-conceived conclusion.
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
You can be denial all you want, it doesn't make a bit of difference. Reality is what it is. |
I'm not denying it, by the way, I just believe the causes are different. There are loads of psychological explanations for that, but not in an evolutionary sense. It's known, for example, that women tend to cheat if they don't feel secure in the relationship.
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
"...Both males and females use long-term and short-term mating strategies. For males, the short-term mating strategy involves having sex with a woman and then abandoning her to look after the baby.
But females also derive advantages from casual sex. An ancestral woman who was already in a long-term relationship might have had casual sex wiith other men and then passed the resulting children off as her partner's.
This "cuckold strategy" gets a woman the best of both worlds: A diverse mix of genes from her various lovers -- and the resources of her doting partner..." |
This cuckold strategy fails to cover a few points:
- The man who engages on extra-marital/casual sex doens't have any warranties on how safe the child would be.
- The woman who engages on extra-marital/casual sex has to cope with the risk of being rumbled and losing support for both the bastard and the legit children.
- The man who engages on extra-marital sex has the risk of being confronted with the legit spouse - in that case, neither of them wins regardless of the results.
Our culture praises monogamy for a reason, you know, and if it were a simply objection from the weak to poligamy, like some people say, it would had been quite easy to null this right in the beginning.
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
BTW an American doctor unexpectedly discovered this in the 50's at a hospital in a well-to-do, influential neighborhood. He was so shocked by the results (remember, we're talking the 50s) that he filed them away forever (they were re-discovered recently). |
Like I said, there's some solid psychological reasoning that makes much more sense than void "evolutionary" speculations. |
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| HardTranceProd |
There's a big difference between reading scientific literature and talking out of your ass like you are doing.
But hey, you can believe whatever the heck you want to believe for all I care. Fine by me. All others can educate themselves by reading books and scientific studies that use the scientific method as opposed to random psychobabble and pseudo-examples from a Western civilization that is as young as a thousand years.
"Culture" has nothing to do with evolution because it appeared only at the very last moment. |
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