3 ms·

The non-paternatity rate is very class dependant. In the upper-middle the rate is quite low, but in the underclasses it can get up to around 20%.

• iguy 8y ago
  No way, 1-2% is more like the range. For the western world, for serious studies e.g. tracking surnames vs Y chromosomes. Most much higher figures come from counting only disputed cases, which are obviously going to be skewed. Edit, some links: Surname "Sykes": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1288207/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1288207/ Bone marrow: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22688803 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22688803
  • danieltillett 8y ago
    Most people are not members of the underclass. Anyway you can't really use historical data like this to estimate the non-paternity rate today.
    • iguy 8y ago
      Indeed the Sykes data is long-term history, and I think of a middle-class sample. But it does teach us that received wisdom was badly wrong there, which should make us less confident of the same wisdom elsewhere. The bone marrow study was 2012, and no class has a monopoly on Leukemia. I would not be surprised if there were a class gradient, but an average of under 2% doesn't leave room for a very big underclass to be scoring 20% or 30%. These are England and Germany, things could be different elsewhere, I don't know whether there is good data.