21 May, 2013

Paternity testing: Personal genomics companies will reveal DNA secrets. - Slate Magazine

Paternity testing: Personal genomics companies will reveal DNA secrets. - Slate Magazine: The study of false fatherhood, or nonpaternity, has turned up a wide variety of answers. University of Oklahoma anthropologist Kermyt Anderson says that measured rates of nonpaternity vary quite dramatically depending on the group of people being tested. Among those men who are quite confident of their status as biological fathers—the ones who volunteer their families for genetic studies of inheritance, for example—Anderson found a rate of nonpaternity of roughly 1.7 percent. At minimum, he says, 1 in 60 dads raises children that don't belong to him.