Home DNA tests reveal 20% of British dads aren't really the father

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Looks like 20% of British women may be brave, courageous, and liberated from the tyrannical patriarchy.


Thousands of dads are left in shock as DIY paternity tests soar


Up to 30,000 tests are being performed every year, says Alphabiolabs
The DNA tests can be carried out with just a simple cheek swab
20 per cent of men will learn they are not the father of the child they are testing


Sales of ‘secret’ paternity tests are surging, according to suppliers of DIY home kits.

The DNA tests, which can be carried out with simple cheek swabs, are leading to growing numbers of men discovering they are not the biological father of children they had been led to believe were theirs.

AlphaBiolabs, the leading British home test supplier, says up to 30,000 paternity tests are being performed in this country every year – and that the figures are rising by ten per cent per year.

‘Of these, around 20 per cent of men will learn they are not the father of the child they are testing,’ says the company’s director, David Thomas. He added that in some regions the figure is higher, including the North East, where it is 30 per cent.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/01/12/23/8448960-0-image-a-1_1547336630048.jpg

The explosion in demand for the tests has been fuelled by the ease with which definitive DNA paternity results can now be obtained. For about £99, testing kits which promise 100 per cent accurate next-day results can be bought online.

Instead of requiring the physical presence at a clinic of both parties being tested, they involve only swabs taken from the inside cheeks of father and child, which are then packaged up and posted to the company.

As long as the man is named on the child’s birth certificate, or has parental responsibility, no permission is required from either the mother or child, meaning the tests can be carried out in total secrecy.

Some websites suggest DNA can be taken from children while they are asleep, to avoid awkward questions, particularly if the children are older.

In some US states, concern over this has led to a recent ban on DIY home DNA testing, with all tests now having to be ordered by a doctor or court official and conducted under their supervision. In Britain, there is no such legislation currently being considered.

Experts warn that the shock of learning a child is not biologically theirs can lead to severe emotional distress for some men, for which they may not be prepared. Laura House, a genetic genealogist, said that the boom in simple and quick DNA testing has overwhelmed the small number of trained genetic counsellors in the UK.

‘There is a profound shortage of trained counsellors who can help people deal with what can be a devastatingly shocking discovery,’ she said. ‘People now get life-changing results via email while sitting alone on their sofa and they are often totally unprepared to navigate the fallout.’

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed the case of Moneysupermarket.com co-founder Richard Mason, who discovered the three sons he had raised as his own with his ex-wife Kate were not biologically his.

Mr Mason’s devastating realisation was the result of his being diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which led doctors to inform him he had been infertile since birth.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6585595/Thousands-dads-left-shock-DIY-paternity-tests-soar.html


I read the other article they're talking about last week. Guy finds out his three kids aren't actually his, his wife divorces him and tried to cut him out of their lives completely. Not even invited to the graduation of the kid he raised all those years.

Most guys don't even want to date a single mom and have to raise someone else's kids. But finding out that "your kids" aren't really even yours? That's a gut punch.

[5th]

Yes indeed! The roughly 20% of children conceived outside of the parent partnership has been known for a long time but now with the increase in paternity testing it is not only being proven correct but becoming more widely known.

The reason for this seemingly high percentage of infidelity was concluded to the the alarming extent to which women are driven by their primitive subconscious urges to get the 'best' genes for their children - and biologically speaking this is usually the bad boy, don't care about anyone else winner type rather than a stable father/provider.

Just another example of how we are are driven by our basic animal instincts!

[greybeard]

Yes 5th
Having played in a band I can say you see a lot from the stage.
This was in a youth club were I started playing in a band.
I saw lovely young girls who I knew fall for"bad" guys well they were so exciting--leaders of the pack.
Dancing with one and making eyes at another.
Several got pregnant--this was pre birth pill days.
Bad guys never took responsibility.

I notice that this pattern repeated in older relationships too--often visible in weddings we played at--eyes only for you stuff while hubby was up buying the drinks.
I also think the reason given in your post holds water.

Chris

[ripple]

Who says that 20% is not the figure that has always broadly been the actual situation?
How does it compare with other countries ?
Isn't the sample structure unscientific in the first place ? it seems reasonable to suggest that those cases most likely to show wrong attribution are the very ones to be tested . So that if all children were tested the overall figure would be much less .
You could have the 20% as reported , but if this only accounted for 10% of all children you might find that wrongful attributions fell to 3% ( say) in the remaining 90% of children . The total wrongful attribution across all children would then fall to under 5% .

[Arak]

I had read previously, that the number is around 10% and thought that it is high... But to read that the truth is somewhere around 20-30%... It is quite shocking. Luckily I don't have any kids so I don't need to worry about this! :happythumbsup:

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Who says that 20% is not the figure that has always broadly been the actual situation?

Because before birth control, back when more traditional gender roles were observed and marriages rarely ended in divorce, society actually had higher standards of morality when it came to fidelity. Women were pretty harshly shunned in many cases for this kind of behavior, even kicked out of homes and fired from jobs. It just wasn't nearly as socially acceptable as it has become today and that's the historical fact about it. Men were also held to higher standards, and treated women with more respect. Respect has all around degraded since then, including self-respect.

That's not to say there were never children conceived through affairs or out-of-wedlock, of course, as that's where the word "bastard" comes from. But for anyone to believe that it's only happening today at the same rate as in previous decades is kind of a head-in-the-sand kind of attitude if you ask me. That's like saying transgender reassignment surgeries were common in the 1950s just because they're becoming more common today. It's a kind of presentism bias.


You could have the 20% as reported , but if this only accounted for 10% of all children you might find that wrongful attributions fell to 3% ( say) in the remaining 90% of children . The total wrongful attribution across all children would then fall to under 5% .

Paternity tests are very common, perhaps even most common where children are born out of wedlock (also very common today -- about half of women in America in fact) to women who are sleeping with multiple people at the same time. And if the government does the testing, there could be legal consequences (in terms of child support, etc.).

So it's not necessarily that these are married couples where the man is suspicious of his wife. It's at least as likely to be a typical "Mauri" situation. So while there may be some truth to what you say for married couples, that isn't necessarily the biggest demographic in these surveys. I'm afraid that the numbers you are imagining may just be wishful thinking.


It's also not always bad news that "you are NOT the father!", as some of these guys show.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALpOzyKCWOo

[ripple]

Who says that 20% is not the figure that has always broadly been the actual situation?

Because before birth control, back when more traditional gender roles were observed and marriages rarely ended in divorce, society actually had higher standards of morality when it came to fidelity. Women were pretty harshly shunned in many cases for this kind of behavior, even kicked out of homes and fired from jobs. It just wasn't nearly as socially acceptable as it has become today and that's the historical fact about it. Men were also held to higher standards, and treated women with more respect. Respect has all around degraded since then, including self-respect. QUOTE

REPLY :Nothing there to suggest any facts for the past -- just assumptions and best guesses . REPLY END






You could have the 20% as reported , but if this only accounted for 10% of all children you might find that wrongful attributions fell to 3% ( say) in the remaining 90% of children . The total wrongful attribution across all children would then fall to under 5% .

Paternity tests are very common, perhaps even most common where children are born out of wedlock (also very common today -- about half of women in America in fact) to women who are sleeping with multiple people at the same time. And if the government does the testing, there could be legal consequences (in terms of child support, etc.).

So it's not necessarily that these are married couples where the man is suspicious of his wife. It's at least as likely to be a typical "Mauri" situation. So while there may be some truth to what you say for married couples, that isn't necessarily the biggest demographic in these surveys. I'm afraid that the numbers you are imagining may just be wishful thinking.]

REPLY ; You are agreeing with my point but guessing that my example figures might be over optimistic . They may be . But equally they may not .
But let's suppose that there are 20 % of children where wrongful attribution occurred and this occurs in 20 % of ALL child births . Then it does not really matter what happens in the other 80% of births where there is no DNA testing , mostly because they will never know what their result might have been and , regardless , they are uninterested . In which case the effective / known / accepted rate of wrongful attribution falls to 4% of all children .
REPLY END

[A Voice from the Mountains]

But let's suppose that there are 20 % of children where wrongful attribution occurred and this occurs in 20 % of ALL child births . Then it does not really matter what happens in the other 80% of births where there is no DNA testing , mostly because they will never know what their result might have been and , regardless , they are uninterested . In which case the effective / known / accepted rate of wrongful attribution falls to 4% of all children .
REPLY END

It isn't that 20% of men got paternity tests, and 80% didn't. It's that, out of all of the thousands of men who did get paternity tests, 20% of them weren't the father.

If the men were all married husbands, then I would agree with you that the number would probably be inflated, because it would just be men who are suspicious of their wives. But since at least half of births today happen outside of wedlock, it's not surprising to me that this figure actually reaches 30% in some parts of Britain, going in the complete opposite direction for that half of births (the ones out of wedlock entirely).

[ripple]

But let's suppose that there are 20 % of children where wrongful attribution occurred and this occurs in 20 % of ALL child births . Then it does not really matter what happens in the other 80% of births where there is no DNA testing , mostly because they will never know what their result might have been and , regardless , they are uninterested . In which case the effective / known / accepted rate of wrongful attribution falls to 4% of all children .
REPLY END

It isn't that 20% of men got paternity tests, and 80% didn't. It's that, out of all of the thousands of men who did get paternity tests, 20% of them weren't the father.

.

You write as though I have not understood the obvious .
And you then make my very point . That is, the sample does not include all those children that were not involved in a test . Which is why the total child population figure ( those that were tested PLUS those that were not ) is much lower . We can disagree on the likely actual figure but it is lower .
Surely you can see that if only people who used the test were those involved in wrongful attribution , that subset figure would be 100% .
Often a method used to produce Fake News .

[5th]

Ripple has a point in as much as it's reasonable to assume the tests were taken by men who suspected something might be wrong and so get a higher hit rate.

However, I'm not sure this really makes much difference as those fathers who didn't take the test probably have more cunning wives or are more trusting. The original 20% was derived from medical sampling that was not specifically requested by the father and so was a more random sample.

Whatever, the fact still stands that a surprising number of children have an unknown father and the main reason for this is women's subconscious drive to get the best genes for their children. For example, it is known that a women samples the immune system of a man by smell and chooses to mate with a man whose immune system is different from hers in order to get the best of both worlds for her offspring. This and other factors drive a women to mate with the 'best' male possible.

Of course, women can (and should?) override this instinctive urge but we are all subject to animal desires.

Men on the other hand are driven to spread their genes as far and wide as possible with little discrimination!

As a point of interest, tests have shown that women on the pill have their 'gene detection' abilities altered and will be attracted to different men. So, beware - a women may find a man less attractive if she goes on the pill (or comes off it). This has caused many a split.

[Ratszinger]

In sociology classes I took in college one of the course instructors talked about the diversity of the gene pools and how other species of hybrid children infiltrated into other cultures. He talked about the hunter gatherers and the hunter went out. In the mean time the hunter in other camps went out. All the wives were gathering and the husbands are not around. The other hunters sometimes met the wives of the other clan tribes and well, put two and two together there was a lot of mixing it up by cheating going on on both ends. He supposed at the time that this was what became of the more dominant and intelligent Neanderthal, which had it's way with any Homo Sapiens it found until it literally raped or simply just had it's way with whatever woman it met since the weaker tribe women had no chance of saying no. He said they apparently did this to their own doom making themselves so few in number that they simply vanished into the tribes they raped. This thread seems to confirm at least a % of that I'd say as being likely on track.