SoylentNews

HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:

A common urban myth is that many fathers are cuckolded into raising children that genetically are not their own, a fear fuelled by the paternity tests that have become a standard staple of gossip magazines, talk shows, and TV series [paternitycourt.tv]. 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 [nytimes.com]. 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 [washingtoncitypaper.com]. 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 [monticello.org], 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 [royalsocietypublishing.org]. 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 rates challenge the idea that women routinely ‘shop around’ for good genes by engaging in extra-pair copulations [cell.com]," 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."

---

Original Submission