3 ms·

Considering nobody ever considers it, 1-2% is huge! 1 in every 50-100 families. How many people from different families do you know? Even if your family isn't

Considering nobody ever considers it, 1-2% is huge! 1 in every 50-100 families. How many people from different families do you know? Even if your family isn't one of affected, I'd bet you know several people from affected families.

anonporridge 5y ago
There are about 120 million households in the US. Lets assume that approximately 100 million are parental households with children (either still dependents or grown and independent). We're talking at least 1-2 million families that could be affected by paternity fraud in the US alone. That has the potential to be massively disruptive if exposed to these 1-2 million families.
brimble 5y ago
Further, if those rates are similar across time and roughly evenly distributed among populations, it means that carefully-researched family tree your aunt (or whoever) has spent so much time working on gets unreliable (as far as biological parentage) fast, the more generations you go back. "Look, I'm distantly related to [famous person]!" Well... maybe.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > Further, if those rates are similar across time and roughly evenly distributed among populations They’re not. Rates of extra paternity events vary a lot by social class[1]. I'd be shocked if that wasn’t true for different ethnic groups. [1] A Historical-Genetic Reconstruction of Human Extra-Pair Paternity Highlights • Combining genetic and genealogical data illuminates our ancestors’ sexual behavior • Gene-genealogy mismatches imply extra-pair paternity (EPP) • Historical EPP rates were low overall (∼1%) but varied depending on social context • EPP rates were highest (∼6%) among urban families with low socioeconomic status https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219313053 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221...
akavi 5y ago
I would strongly expect it to be clustered in specific populations. I'd be very surprised if the rate among HN readers was equal to the rate among the general population.
- bobkazamakis 5y ago
  I promise you HN is a statistical anomaly in a certain direction.

anonporridge 5y ago

There are about 120 million households in the US. Lets assume that approximately 100 million are parental households with children (either still dependents or grown and independent). We're talking at least 1-2 million families that could be affected by paternity fraud in the US alone. That has the potential to be massively disruptive if exposed to these 1-2 million families.

brimble 5y ago

Further, if those rates are similar across time and roughly evenly distributed among populations, it means that carefully-researched family tree your aunt (or whoever) has spent so much time working on gets unreliable (as far as biological parentage) fast, the more generations you go back. "Look, I'm distantly related to [famous person]!" Well... maybe.

barry-cotter 5y ago
> Further, if those rates are similar across time and roughly evenly distributed among populations They’re not. Rates of extra paternity events vary a lot by social class[1]. I'd be shocked if that wasn’t true for different ethnic groups. [1] A Historical-Genetic Reconstruction of Human Extra-Pair Paternity Highlights • Combining genetic and genealogical data illuminates our ancestors’ sexual behavior • Gene-genealogy mismatches imply extra-pair paternity (EPP) • Historical EPP rates were low overall (∼1%) but varied depending on social context • EPP rates were highest (∼6%) among urban families with low socioeconomic status https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219313053 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221...

akavi 5y ago

I would strongly expect it to be clustered in specific populations. I'd be very surprised if the rate among HN readers was equal to the rate among the general population.

bobkazamakis 5y ago
I promise you HN is a statistical anomaly in a certain direction.