Category Archives: paternity

Over the years one issue I’ve revisited over and over is that paternity certainty is quite high in Western societies (and from the spotty evidence we have, in most Asian and Middle Eastern societies as well). The reason this is interesting or of note is that there is an urban myth that 10% or so […]

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Nonpaternity rate % N Switzerland 0.83 1607 USA, Michigan, white 1.49 1417 USA, California, white 2.1 6960 USA, Hawaii 2.3 2839 UK, West London 3.7 2596 Paternity Testing Laboratories UK 16.6 1702 USA, Los Angeles, white 24.9 1393 Sweden 38.7 5018 South Africa, Cape Coloured 40 1156 The results above are from Kermyt Anderson’s How […]

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Jump to 3 minutes if you don’t have time.

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Before Birth, Dad’s ID. Nothing too surprising, if you can check for fetal abnormalities, it shouldn’t be too hard to ascertain paternity. Two issues of note in the piece. In the specific cases highlighted the author and the sources emphasized …

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We have some data that in fact older generations were more sexually promiscuous, contrary to the moral panic perpetually ascendant. As a follow up to my previous post, there is some scholarship which suggests that misattributed paternity rates have been declining. Recent decline in nonpaternity rates: a cross-temporal meta-analysis:
Nonpaternity (i.e., discrepant biological versus social fatherhood) […]

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An urban myth, often asserted with a wink & a nod in some circles, is that a very high proportion of children in Western countries are not raised by their biological father, and in fact are not aware that their putative biological father is not their real biological father. The numbers I see and hear […]

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Razib Khan