11 ms·

In other news, 23andMe introduced relative finder not long ago. I hadn't logged on in over 2 years after I did it with a groupon promo, but I had a public profi

by hop 14y ago

In other news, 23andMe introduced relative finder not long ago. I hadn't logged on in over 2 years after I did it with a groupon promo, but I had a public profile with my name and city. A half-sister i didn't know i had found me with matching DNA, owns a business 5 blocks away and walked over to meet me (what's the probability of that!?). Found my dad was not my biological dad and i was from the same sperm donor as my new sister. That was a weird week...

loceng 14y ago
Are you joking?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
  I'm sure that happens a lot; father is sterile so they use artificial insemination and they never let the kid know; is just that OP is one of the few who later found out.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - hop 14y ago
    Yep, that's what happened. Also, procedures were different back then, so we could have many more siblings, hope we didn't hook up in college.
    - mvleming 14y ago
      The percentages I've heard are all over the place, but a decent number of children are actually not genetically related to their fathers. (I've heard anywhere between 3% and 30%.) One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that compete for her egg, thereby increasing the chances that her children will have good genes.
      - mcherm 14y ago
        > One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that compete for her egg, thereby increasing the chances that her children will have good genes. That would be better expressed like this: > One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs. The speculation about the reason for the affairs is just silly. Seriously. This made-up pseudo-evolutionary explanations for things that are so popular really do not add anything. Try it: ask 10 different women who have had affairs what their reason was -- they are real, live human beings, so you can ask instead of just speculating. I'm guessing that 0% of those women will say "to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that competes for my egg".
        iansimon 14y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation#In_biology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causatio...
        eric-hu 14y ago
        My smirk apparently agrees with you. That pseudo-evolutionary statement reminds me of the mouse-over for this xkcd http://xkcd.com/685/ http://xkcd.com/685/
        mvleming 14y ago
        If I asked you "Why do you take your hand off a hot stove?" you might say because it hurts. But the fact that it hurts for us when we put our hand on the stove is our genes trying to keep themselves alive, because otherwise they risk being killed. In the same way, a person might say they had an affair for whatever reason, but really its their genes who want to be able to pass on themselves. (Edited for clarity.)
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        justincormack 14y ago
        Not really. That's a theory and it is one that is hard to disprove experimentally. It is a much stronger theory than evolution, saying that every action is correctly designed to optimise gene transmission. Essentially it is trying to say that we are at a global maximum in a space that is probably more nonlinear. In fact our genes may well be suboptimal in some respects even if you think they have "control". The contortions people go through to try to justify homosexuality as a genetic thing are one example of many. In fact diversity is an advantage in a varying environment so many traits must be suboptimal.
- hop 14y ago
  Ha, no. And my new sister's husband is also happens to be a phd geneticist.
  - loceng 14y ago
    "Crazy" and cool. I never thought about the connections that could occur through DNA matching.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
>23andMe introduced relative finder not long ago. I hadn't logged on in over 2 years after I did it with a groupon promo, but I had a public profile with my name and city. That's scary. Did you explicitly consent to that? It sounds like you didn't...
- driverdan 14y ago
  Yes, you have to consent.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    Oh, thank goodness for that.
    - JackWebbHeller 14y ago
      Only on Hacker News would the top reply to a comment about a person discovering their father was not their biological father be about privacy and opt-ins...
      - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
        So we shouldn't care about privacy here? That's pretty serious if it was how I thought.
        chad_oliver 14y ago
        No, he's merely saying that we are more privacy-conscious than the average group of people. I don't think he was claiming that was good or bad, just abnormal.
        javert 14y ago
        I read it as "Only on hacker news [insert good thing here]", and I agree with that sentiment, whether it was the intent or not. I think people caring a lot about privacy and issues like that is one reason I really like this place.
return0 14y ago
Actually they have the relative finder since a long time ago (i think from the beginning?). Also, you have to consent to that, and when i joined they had a warning that situations like these can happen. Sounds to me that in your case, the website delivered on its promise.
genewolf 14y ago
Wow - quite a story! After all that, was it a positive experience? Would you do it again?
smnv 14y ago
That can be a great movie plot.
Eliezer 14y ago
So is your new-found family named Sahashi? </reference so incredibly obscure that I'll be impressed if anyone gets it even on HN>

by hop 14y ago

loceng 14y ago

Are you joking?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
I'm sure that happens a lot; father is sterile so they use artificial insemination and they never let the kid know; is just that OP is one of the few who later found out.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- hop 14y ago
  Yep, that's what happened. Also, procedures were different back then, so we could have many more siblings, hope we didn't hook up in college.
  - mvleming 14y ago
    The percentages I've heard are all over the place, but a decent number of children are actually not genetically related to their fathers. (I've heard anywhere between 3% and 30%.) One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that compete for her egg, thereby increasing the chances that her children will have good genes.
    - mcherm 14y ago
      > One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that compete for her egg, thereby increasing the chances that her children will have good genes. That would be better expressed like this: > One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs. The speculation about the reason for the affairs is just silly. Seriously. This made-up pseudo-evolutionary explanations for things that are so popular really do not add anything. Try it: ask 10 different women who have had affairs what their reason was -- they are real, live human beings, so you can ask instead of just speculating. I'm guessing that 0% of those women will say "to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that competes for my egg".
      - iansimon 14y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation#In_biology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causatio...
      - eric-hu 14y ago
        My smirk apparently agrees with you. That pseudo-evolutionary statement reminds me of the mouse-over for this xkcd http://xkcd.com/685/ http://xkcd.com/685/
      - mvleming 14y ago
        If I asked you "Why do you take your hand off a hot stove?" you might say because it hurts. But the fact that it hurts for us when we put our hand on the stove is our genes trying to keep themselves alive, because otherwise they risk being killed. In the same way, a person might say they had an affair for whatever reason, but really its their genes who want to be able to pass on themselves. (Edited for clarity.)
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        justincormack 14y ago
        Not really. That's a theory and it is one that is hard to disprove experimentally. It is a much stronger theory than evolution, saying that every action is correctly designed to optimise gene transmission. Essentially it is trying to say that we are at a global maximum in a space that is probably more nonlinear. In fact our genes may well be suboptimal in some respects even if you think they have "control". The contortions people go through to try to justify homosexuality as a genetic thing are one example of many. In fact diversity is an advantage in a varying environment so many traits must be suboptimal.
hop 14y ago
Ha, no. And my new sister's husband is also happens to be a phd geneticist.
- loceng 14y ago
  "Crazy" and cool. I never thought about the connections that could occur through DNA matching.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

>23andMe introduced relative finder not long ago. I hadn't logged on in over 2 years after I did it with a groupon promo, but I had a public profile with my name and city. That's scary. Did you explicitly consent to that? It sounds like you didn't...

driverdan 14y ago
Yes, you have to consent.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Oh, thank goodness for that.
  - JackWebbHeller 14y ago
    Only on Hacker News would the top reply to a comment about a person discovering their father was not their biological father be about privacy and opt-ins...
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      So we shouldn't care about privacy here? That's pretty serious if it was how I thought.
      - chad_oliver 14y ago
        No, he's merely saying that we are more privacy-conscious than the average group of people. I don't think he was claiming that was good or bad, just abnormal.
        javert 14y ago
        I read it as "Only on hacker news [insert good thing here]", and I agree with that sentiment, whether it was the intent or not. I think people caring a lot about privacy and issues like that is one reason I really like this place.

return0 14y ago

Actually they have the relative finder since a long time ago (i think from the beginning?). Also, you have to consent to that, and when i joined they had a warning that situations like these can happen. Sounds to me that in your case, the website delivered on its promise.

genewolf 14y ago

Wow - quite a story! After all that, was it a positive experience? Would you do it again?

smnv 14y ago

That can be a great movie plot.

Eliezer 14y ago

So is your new-found family named Sahashi? </reference so incredibly obscure that I'll be impressed if anyone gets it even on HN>