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A common urban myth is that many fathers are cuckolded into raising children that genetically are not their own, a fear fueled by the paternity tests that have become a standard staple of gossip magazines, talk shows, and TV series. Now Carl Zimmer reports at the NYT that our obsession with cuckolded fathers is seriously overblown as a number of recent genetic studies have challenged the notion that mistaken paternity is commonplace.
It wasn’t until DNA sequencing emerged in the 1990s that paternity tests earned the legal system’s confidence. Labs were able to compare DNA markers in children to those of their purported fathers to see if they matched. As the lab tests piled up, researchers collated the results and came to a startling conclusion: Ten percent to 30 percent of the tested men were not the biological fathers of their children. There's only one problem with these previous studies: the results didn’t come from a random sample of people. The people who ordered the tests already had reason to doubt paternity.
In a 2013 study, Dr. Maarten H.D. Larmuseau used Belgium’s detailed birth records to reconstruct large family genealogies reaching back four centuries. Then the scientists tracked down living male descendants and asked to sequence their Y chromosomes. Y chromosomes are passed down in almost identical form from fathers to sons. Men who are related to the same male ancestor should also share his Y chromosome, providing that some unknown father didn’t introduce his own Y somewhere along the way. Comparing the chromosomes of living related men, Larmuseau came up with a cuckoldry rate of less than 1 percent.
Similar studies have generally produced the same low results in such countries as Spain, Italy and Germany, as well as agricultural villages in Mali. "The observed low EPP [(extra-pair paternity)] rates challenge the idea that women routinely ‘shop around’ for good genes by engaging in extra-pair copulations," concludes Larmuseau . "The (potential) genetic benefits of extrapair children are unlikely to be offset by the (potential) costs of being caught, particularly in such a long-lived species as humans with heavy offspring dependence and massive parental investment."
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @12:19PM
It would differ in the study linked up top because they only tracked the Y chromosome to determine who's the parent.
Only males(barring some rare genetic disorders) have the Y chromosome. Thus if a cheating wife has a daughter but had a son with her legit partner, she is counted as faithful in this study when she isn't.
This is ON TOP of the fact the Y chromosome changes so slowly that you(if you're a guy) and a random male neighbor in your neighborhood can have the exact copys. It's a deeply flawed study to try to make humans appear as monogamous when all evidence points to the contrary.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by tfried on Wednesday April 13 2016, @01:26PM
they only tracked the Y chromosome to determine who's the parent
Exactly. And they ignored all offspring not expected to carry a Y chromosome. Because, you see, their point was not to prove individual women guilty of cheating, but to estimate the rate of it happening. For this purpose it is perfectly ok to look at male children, only, and derive the estimate from that.
Not qualified to comment on your other point. But this one is moot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @05:07PM
And yet, you miss the point. By only focusing on the Y chromosome they have a HUGE selection bias in that they are ignoring roughly 50% of potential offspring. That's flaw 1.
Flaw 2 is the part of the human genome they used changes not only very rarely that it's near to basically useless at determining WHO fathered which son. It's great for determining ancient migration patterns and determining where groups came from. As in the native Americans coming from Asia. Because it's mutation rate is slow and predictable, every few thousand years.
Yet for determining paternity it's useless because it's more likely to be passed on intact between father and son to the point that you could find the exact same copy of the Y chromosome in a random unrelated neighbor.
Genealogy records, especially ones not backed by proper genetic paternity testing also constitute a major flaw.
(Score: 4, Informative) by careysub on Wednesday April 13 2016, @08:23PM
"And yet, you miss the point. By only focusing on the Y chromosome they have a HUGE selection bias in that they are ignoring roughly 50% of potential offspring. That's flaw 1."
The sex of a child is random. This is a very, very well established fact. Attempts to circumvent this, or to make guesses as to an infants sex, have always failed consistently until recent times allowed directly examining the sex of the fetus through genetic testing.
How can this then introduce "selection bias"? The basis of statistics is the ability to take a random sample to make an assessment of the entire population. Just because natural forces made the the selection for us does not invalidate it in any way.
"Flaw 2 is the part of the human genome they used changes not only very rarely that it's near to basically useless at determining WHO fathered which son"
So you didn't bother to look at the study? I am astonished.
The study does not attempt to determine WHO fathered which son. It is determining the rate at which the Y haplotype from a paternal ancestor fails to match the expected haplotype of descendant. This is very different from "determining paternity". The negligible rate of mutation is an advantage here, since there a fixed distribution of haplotypes in the population over the 7 generations studied.
"Genealogy records, especially ones not backed by proper genetic paternity testing also constitute a major flaw."
This remark is simply bewildering. Matching genealogy records against actual Y-chromosome descent is the very purpose of the study. The deviation between actual parentage and recorded parentage (genealogy) is the definition of "cuckoldry" here.
Basically your objections come to nothing. Read the study first before you critique its methods.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 13 2016, @07:03PM
It's a deeply flawed study to try to make humans appear as monogamous when all evidence points to the contrary.
Ah! The time honored principle of research assessment! "Do I agree with the conclusion?" "No!" "Therefore, the study is deeply flawed." And then we go one better! Since this study is deeply flawed, per our earlier inference, the opposite of its conclusion must be the case, on the principle of argumentum ad ignorantiam and by the "all evidence" which is neither provided or referenced. Well done, promiscuous and cuckolded Anoymous Coward!