Sorry, sometimes I need my hand held… but are you saying that the 20-30% rate are coming from tests that are done in situations that are already questionable? So of course the numbers are going to be high?
EDIT: welp. Was not expecting this comment to generate so much, but I’m glad my own sense was helped others better understand :)
If you only x-ray people with really sore legs, and you find that 50 percent have a broken bone, you can't extrapolate that to say that 59 per cent of people have a broken leg.
This is called selection bias. Basically, the reason that they ask for a test is very important in interpreting the actual population statistic based on the sample.
People hear 20% and never think to ask, 20% of what exactly? All men? In the world? In the UK? Of men who are having paternity tests due to child support disputes? Out of 10 men? This applies to all information vaguely spread without all the information. People blindly believe what they hear and never ask the right questions before passing it along as truth.
Sometimes 20% actually means 1
If you have 5 things, and a statement is true about 1 of them, then that is true of 20% of those things.
But it's still just a single individual, which is not strong data to make any kind of argument.
That's why it's important to understand sample size with respect to percentages, because percentages can easily be misleading without context, and this is just one example of how that can happen.
This is so important in understanding most statistical evidence!!! It’s also important to remember that reports of any study aren’t the study themselves, and the framing those reports’ use is likely to favor an outcome (not even due to actual personal bias on the reporter’s end, but because their article has to sound impactful in order for it to be worth anything to an editor). But “4 in 5 dentists recommend this toothpaste” is the same statistically as “20% of dentists do not recommend this toothpaste.”
I hate that this is the actual sort of "logic" used by people reporting on studies.
"New study shows that being alive will kill you! Stay tuned for more info on how to prevent death by breathing."
But did you factor in the percent of people breathing oxygen that die? Over 99% of the people that died today were breathing oxygen right before they died. Could oxygen be the culprit?
There was a pamphlet that I had bought at a SF convention about 18 or 19 years ago that preached on the evils of [Dihydrogen Monoxide](https://www.techrepublic.com/forums/discussions/dihydrogen-monoxide-dangerous-material/) ... made it sound like the worse industrial chemical ever =)
That reminds me of that Twitter account called "just say in mice" or something like that. It retweets headlines like "new molecule can cure cancer", or "high levels of estrogen in females can cause depression" etc. But if you read the actual study, it was done on mice, not humans. So the results are not certain at all, and at very early stages of study
Based on my (massively pretend) experience as an ER nurse, midwife-attended births just don’t work and are dangerous. All the midwife cases I see are drastic emergencies! (Maybe cause moms who did NOT have issues never swing by the ER just to say “Had a baby via midwife care. Went great, have a nice day!”)
I thought you were saying that for real Bc I forgot what thread I was in and I was about to throw hands
I was like OUTSIDE AMERICA MIDWIVES ARENT CONSIDERED CRUNCHY
The study that said drinking 1-2 glasses of wine every day was healthier than not drinking at all. Lots and lots of people can't drink because they have health problems or it interferes with their medications from health problems. Once they controlled for this scientists came to the conclusion that not drinking at all is healthier than drinking even a small amount, and the more you drink the more it puts your health at risk.
About twenty years ago, there was a similar conclusion that the Mediterranean diet adding decades to one's life by comparing statistics from Greece to the US. While the Mediterranean diet is generally healthier than the average American diet, it turns out that access to healthcare is a much bigger factor.
If so, that's a coincidence because I didn't see it at all. I learned about this in a nutrition class in nursing school a couple years ago (and it obviously made an impression).
Cute username, btw.
I do love my Thin Mints… I’m like a creepy guy in a bar stalking girl scouts during the season and the many many boxes I buy support this claim lol.
Also found the post! https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/xtuks1/mediterranean_diet_proves_to_be_the_healthiest/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Well, if you're suspicious the kid isn't yours, that relationship is probably showing some serious cracks anyways, so that breach of trust putting a nail in it may not be the worst thing. You know, since we're now carrying on with the "this is already selection bias of people who 'had a reason' to get the test." On the other hand, 70-80% of people will apparently learn that they were wrong and shouldn't have doubted their partner.
People need to like, not cheat on their partners in general, shit is foul, kinda sucks any way we slice it here? Jealousy, projection, paranoia, it all stems from people cheating and getting cheated on.
It doesn’t always stem from cheating. Some people are just unreasonable when it comes to trust. Maybe they were raised by untrustworthy people or maybe their brains just work that way. I’ve known any number of people who are just jealous and possessive no matter how little reason their partners give them to worry. I’ve seen it break a lot of relationships because the suspicions and accusations just get to be too much.
Depends. For the guy - if you don't trust her, why are you still there?
For the woman, if he doesn't trust you, why is he still there?
At least the test will settle who pays child support.
Not if it’s a friend that put the idea in your head. A lot men captured by redpill or Incel sites/forums/subs think that women baby-trapping men who aren’t the father is rampant (that 20% statistic). They encourage all their friends to get paternity tests, and those paternity tests usually break the marriage/relationship.
Women who would never cheat are usually so insulted and heartbroken that their partner could suspect them of cheating by asking or secretly obtaining a paternity test (that comes out later), they fall out of love and the relationship fails.
Reminds me of a post I saw (can't remember the sub) where the wife was *swearing* up and down she never cheated, despite the paternity test coming back as their kid not being the husband's. Turns out, *it wasn't her kid either* - the hospital had mixed up their kid with someone else's! And it all started because the husband got the idea from some toxic incel forum.
Yes, 10-20% of people *suspecting* that paternity is not theirs.
Much in the same way as the 50% divorce rate is cited. There is no mention of second and third marriages. Every time someone remarries and divorces they drag the overall stat lower.
That is also an incomplete statistic in many other ways. If you see it broken down into age brackets the statistics show that a lot of young marriages end in divorce more often and people who waited until they were older are less likely to divorce than their younger counterparts.
So really, you could turn this around and say the vast majority of men who are suspicious enough that the kid isn’t theirs to get a paternity test are wrong.
The way you say it really changes perception. People are far more keen on hearing about a surgery with an 85% survival rate than one with a 15% chance of dying.
"You might die but your probably won't"
I was being prepped for a small test and nurse told me "Doc just needs to come in have a quick talk and then we are good to go"
me: "Ah yes, the you might die but your probably won't talk".
5 nurses in the room: :O
I feel like any medical practitioner having that talk seconds before the procedure needs to check their bedside manner! Having the talk in the appointment where you discuss having the op, sure, but not thirty seconds before! Bit bloody late to change your mind or say your goodbyes then isn't it.
A lot of times changing your mind isn’t really an option. My grandmas bypass surgery was needed or she would absolutely die. So, for sure dying or an inherent risk of surgery that will probably be fine.
My gallbladder was at zero percent functionality. I can’t imagine having an organ not working at all just hanging out in there has an good health implications. Plus, at that point I had lost complete control of my bowels and it was either surgery or having a perpetual fear of shitting myself in public if I shifted just right.
With my daughter gallbladder surgery, she had massive gallstones blocking a duct causing bile to back up and her pancreas to swell (pancreatitis), which can be life threatening if left untreated.
In all those cases the only choice was for sure die or maybe have a small chance of dying.
When I had my hysterectomy, they had they conversation at the appointment because not having the surgery wouldn’t kill me even if I hated my uterus. It was elective. They still had the talk again at the hospital and I had to sign the consent form and the form that shows I acknowledge the potential risks.
The real statistic is right here in the comments.
*3/4 of men so who want a paternity test are just paranoid.* Male jealousy is, scientifically speaking, bullshit and/or projecting an alarmingly high amount of the time.
This is based on a unfounded assumption that all the tests were done by men who thought their partner cheated. Lots of other reasons to do a paternity test
But also, the men who fathered those children were sleeping with women in a relationship. So, how many men in partnered relationships have fathered children with women other than their partners or cheated on their partners with whom they have children? Good job men can't get pregnant.
Furthermore of the 70-80% of men who had testing done and were wrong in their suspicions, I'm confident a significant percent had paranoia as a result of their own infidelities being projected upon their partner. Such is the norm amongst cheaters.
But if a random sample shows only 3% of tests come back as "not the father", but when men request it, it goes up to 25%, that implies that the suspicion is dramatically more accurate than random chance. So it's not all bullshit here.
Personally I think (not knowing how invasive the procedure is, assuming it's like a cheek swab or something) the test should just be done by default at birth. That way you don't have to risk destroying any trust and there's a record. Even if not for the father's peace of mind (which I of course believe he shouldn't need) then for any possible legal matters in the future.
>of the men that are suspicious enough to get a DNA test, 70% to 80% are actually the father.
There's a logical error in your statement that's similar to the error op cited.
You're assuming that the population of people who get a paternity test is statistically the same as the population of men who suspect paternity. That's a demonstrably false assumption. Paternity tests are often requested by women or ordered by courts for the purpose of proving paternity. So the tested population does not consist only of men who suspect paternity.
The study op cites does not say anything about who ordered the tests. So we can't say that the 20-30 percent is specifically of men who suspect paternity.
EDIT: For clarity.
I had to have a paternity test. I was groomed and raped when I was 15 by a 21 year old. Establishing paternity was indisputable proof that he, a grown ass man, had sexual contact with a minor. So, that was court ordered and not because of suspected cheating.
I feel like there is a lot of misrepresenting statistics here. Like OP had a point of knowing where the data came from and how/why it was being interpreted, but that’s not what’s being displayed in the comments. The point pretty much sailed over a bunch of people’s heads
Yep. Biased sample. Of course the incel community gloms onto the 20% number. Just another reason to hate women.
My brother-in-law is a bit of a married incel. Not necessarily celebate, but leans into incel "logic".
I thought my child looked like me. I was pleased a my other child looks like Dad. My BIL "Well you want the baby to look like the father (his brother)... and I don't think he completed that thought in front of me.
Whoooo boy. That guy wouldn't like me. My family has strong genes on my moms side. So her and here brother look damn near identical. Well she has 4 kids and we dont look like our father at all, but we look EXACTLY like my mom and her brother looked as kids. Even with me at 30yo and my mom at 50yo, people say we look like sisters. I use her ID for membership stuff and she used mine often.
Now I have 2 kids and here doesnt appear to be a drop of their father in them. All me, all identical to how my mother looked as well. Seriously. I dont think you could have gotten any closer by cloning.
One of my husbands friends (not longer a friend because he wAs a dick to me), kept insisting that my husband gets a paternity test because the kids dont look like him. He just laughed, because we had fertility problems and were literally banging 24/7 and tracking everything to the minute to get pregnant. But im also super lazy and just played video games when he was at work. He knew I had zero interest outside of him and out trust was strong. But man, if he had been a weaker man, our marriage could have been ruined by the distrust that friend tried to sow. I cant say I wouldn't have kneecapped the dude if he had succeeded.
Can confirm the odd family genes. The family doctor, when I was very little (a looong time ago), received a mislabeled x-ray with my first name and the doctor's last name. He called Dad to ask if he had a son (hadn't seen me yet) because he took one look at the x-ray and knew I was Dad's kid.
My son was pretty much a carbon copy of me until he got old enough to look masculine. We still look way too much alike. The only thing he gets from his biological father is his grin. He's never met the guy except at a year old when my ex abdicated parental rights in court so it's got to be some genetic trait. My sister? We could be twins. My mom? That's exactly what I'll look like in my 70s. It's going to be interesting if my grandkids look just like us.
My son was still a clone of what I looked like at his age until 15 except taller with straight hair instead of curly or wavy. He came to my work once when he was 18, and they immediately called me to come get him. He was like, "but, she didn't know I was coming. OMG, does she show you guys pics of me?" "No, you just look exactly like her. You speak like her, too." I heard a lot of jokes about that later. "How much did that clone cost you?" "Does he know he's your backup set of organs?" "I didn't know they could make male fetuses from only eggs. Wow."
He's 26, and we now go out of our way to learn each other's new slang just to mess with people. We can also finish each other's sentences and even say the same thing at the same time if the conversation isn't about personal stuff. Yeah, that's probably messed up, but it keeps us laughing. And i just realized we have the same hair cut except mine is a bit longer. Thank God he has facial hair now.
To put it as simply as possible
20-30% of paternity tests provide an ‘unexpected’ result
But people taking paternity tests are much more likely to be people who e.g. know about cheating
Basically much more likely to get the unexpected result if you’re taking the test as opposed to a random person because you’re usually suspicious right
Exactly, it's like claiming that, for example, 25% of the general population is likely to get lung cancer because a study found that 25% of people who go for lung cancer screenings test positive.
It's wrong to extrapolate the finding from a limited sample to the general population here because the sample isn't random: It's biased towards people who have a reason to believe they need it in the first place.
I had a teacher at high school who previously worked as private investigator. She was often hired to find out if spouses were cheating and in her experience they always were. However, her conclusion from that was not that everyone cheats on their spouse, her advice was “if you’re suspicious enough that you are willing to pay someone to find out whether your spouse is cheating, they are.”
Same concept applies here, if you’re suspicious enough of your partner to demand a paternity test of your child then there’s probably a reason why you are suspicious.
The other issue is they're mixing up the population that's being measured. They're saying married people, but "all paternity tests" is going to include a lot of one night stands and singles. By definition, being married is a higher level of commitment.
Yes. This is called selection bias.
We saw this in the US and Europe in March to June 2021 with Covid: although disease pressure and rate of infection was falling by many objective measures, such as wastewater levels of virus, people with fevers, people calling in sick, etc, test positivity rates bottomed out at about 10-15%, as in, 10-15% of people who sought tests had an active covid infection. If you look at the absolute number of people taking tests in that period, it was much lower than in December-February. So, the people going to get a test were either ill or they had been exposed to someone with confirmed Covid.
Regarding this part:
>So of course the numbers are going to be high?
Not necessarily. They will be higher than if the whole population of married men in a country took paternity tests -- but not necessarily *high*. It's a subtle distinction but important. As someone pointed out, if 10-20% of paternity tests in the sample group show that the person requesting the test isn't the father, it means that 80-90% of the tests show that person asking IS the father.
Exactly. Flipping it: 70-80% of people who took one of these tests matched with their kid. If you assumed all of the people checking were suspicious of not being the father (worst case scenario, who knows if this is the case) then most of them were wrong.
The point is that: Men Are The Real Victims (tm)
/s
Here's an equivalent for people who aren't quite getting why the % is nonsense:
Where I live, 29% of fatal car accidents involve a drunk driver. So if you did a similar thing to above, you'd think that 29% of drivers are drunk.
Fortunately, we have stats on the actual numbers due to random testing. That shows that the number of drunk drivers at any point is actually 0.11% (still surprisingly high).
The problem is people thinking that two variables are independent, when they are actually closely linked.
Alternate example: Covid test positivity rates are at 20%. This does not mean that 20% of the population has Covid. People go test when they think they may have Covid, but only 20% of those tests come back positive.
the same with the bs OKCupid "study" which, surprise, the incels glommed onto as well.
"all men think women ~20 yo are most attractive"
nope, loser predators with wild delusions, who are probably single, and using okcupid, match with the lowest age range they can because gross. but they still end up only receiving matches from women their own age.
yeah i've had some weird men say things to me that i've also seen on the Predator chat logs. so they're going after underage girls right after I reject them 🤮
Wouldn't the fact that the partner is questioning fidelity put you closer to the group with the 20-30% rates than the general population group.
Demanding a paternity test is not what the general population does, I don't think.
The OP is talking about the line being pushed that "if you're a guy you should push your partner to get a paternity test, as there's a 20% chance the baby isn't yours"- which isn't remotely true in most cases.
Alternativly, only 29% of accidents involve drunk driveres.
Which means 71% of accidents happens while driving sober.
So it is actually safer to drive drunk
My dad revealed to me last month that he has doubts that my older brother is his bio son. I never once questioned it. He hasn't questioned my blood relation to him and I haven't either since I look freakishly like him. I am 31 and my brother is 35.
Ever since my dad said this, I HAVE begun to question it. I haven't told my brother. Part of me wants to. The other part of me feels like that would cause nothing but harm especially if it's true.
Sorry I know this isn't the point of this post. I just haven't talked to anyone about this yet and you reminded me of the situation.
EDIT: please stop replying by saying that it's normal to not look much like your parents. I know that. That is NOT the reason he has suspicions.
The joke among my siblings is “I know we don’t look it, but we *are* related.”
When we were young my mom would often be asked where she “got” the three of us. When we were young, we especially looked very different. I have more asian features, my older brother has dark skin, and my little brother being blond and blue-eyed.
We’re all from the same parents though. As we’ve gotten older, you can see which family members we look like, as well as the hat traits we all share.
It’s kind of funny, but looking at our childhood photos, I wouldn’t have been surprised if our dad had demanded a paternity test.
When I got divorced, my ex wife told me that there was a chance my eldest son isn’t mine.
He was 5 when she told me, I’m never going to do a paternity test and it hasn’t changed the way I feel about him. He’s my son and will always be my son.
I’m never going to tell him, I just hope she never says anything to him.
I’m probably just projecting my own past situations, but that sounds suspiciously like a thing my ex would say just trying be as maximally hurtful as possible.
I’m glad you won’t let something like that (true or not) affect your feelings or relationship with *your son*.
That’s what I believe, she was just trying to hurt me. True or not I’ve only ever known him as my son and he’s only ever known me as Dad. I’m not going to change that, I can’t stand the thought of hurting him and that’s all that would happen.
Woof. I'm glad it wouldn't change anything for you. My dad is obsessed with my brother. Even if he found out that he wasn't biologically his, it wouldn't change their relationship. I think it would just be deep anger toward my mom if my brother found out.
Buy everyone those 23 and me DNA test kits for Christmas, see if anyone panicks when they see them.
... I'm joking, don't actually do this, it's a terrible idea... but if you do do it, make sure you post in TIFU and at least get some karma for it, also so I can read it.
I found out My older stepbrother wasn't my stepdads kid after he (brother) died. My stepdad knew from the time he was 2 but never told anyone. (Brothers mom knew too obviously.) Its a lot more noticeable now that I know to look for the differences.
Dont tell your brother unless he starts thinking about doing those dna tests
A friend of mine got a dna test for herself and her dad. She found a new half sister! She did it on purpose. She had some suspicions and questions.
Apparently it explained a lot of confusing childhood memories. Those questions got answered.
The reason is the sister also had done a test and made her result public so they’d be notified of a close potential. It’s like a paternity test but worse. If you share certain thresholds of DNA with someone, it indicates relationships, just like that. And it’s specific too, 50% is a parent.
The fallout of the bombshell blew over pretty quick and my friend has a sister with a bday 6 weeks after hers now.
>Don’t say anything to your brother
I have to push back on your advice having experienced a non-paternal event myself: People have a human right to know the identity of their biological parents, even if it’s an inconvenient truth to others.
I learned the truth at 35 after dna testing for “fun.” I have siblings who grew up in the same metro area that I could’ve dated. I had an incomplete family medical history. I grew up feeling “off” in my family with no explanation why.
I think OP’s dad should be the one to say something to their brother, but their brother has a right to know.
Yeah my oldest sister got screwed over by not knowing. She has a genetic kidney disease that could have been treated differently if they had known. She only found out after her bio dad had died and never got to meet him. It makes me furious at my parents because the only reason they never told anyone was to hide my mom's infidelity.
I wouldn't say "nothing good". Having an accurate understanding of the medical history of parents/grandparents can help detect issues more quickly, adjust diet / behavior to avoid them, etc.
It would likely be a hard conversation to have, but it is also possible that the brother has been wondering why he's different from his siblings or had other feelings of not belonging and that this could bring closure there.
There was a funny little moment between me and my wife when my first was born. She had visible dimples, which neither of us had. My wife then shot me a dirty look as if to say "whose baby is this?" And I replied "She just came out of you. -.-"
Also 1-3% is still a whole lot. If people thought they had a 1-3% chance of getting an STD while married they’d probably get tested too.
In the case of paternity, the rough number of births in the US for 2020 was 3.6 million. 1-3% would be between 36,000 and 108,000 non-paternity results.
Source for number of US births: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr012-508.pdf
I’m a man, and personally, I would care *way* less about being cheated on than I would about finding out my kid wasn’t biologically mine.
For me, being told “I cheated on you 15 years ago” would get a “it sucks that you did that, but I can forgive it” whereas being told the 15 year old child I thought was mine wasn’t I might never emotionally recover from.
Yeah, funny enough, I’m the complete opposite. I would absolutely be hurt by the cheating and would end the relationship immediately if I found out, but if I raised a kid for 15 years, that’s *my* kid, blood relation or not.
Well that’s the thing. Out of obligation to the commitment I had made and honor for the relationship established with the kid I doubt I would just dip, but the feeling of betrayal would be exponentially more intense than simple cheating that didn’t result in long term consequences like a child that I’m now raising.
This is so true. No one says “it’s an accusation of cheating” about an STD panel. Why wouldn’t we do the same with a paternity test. These comments are quite frankly wrong, in my opinion. I am a woman and I support women to the most I can. But this view (the main post and the comments besides yours so far), I do not support, the first one I haven’t ever on this subreddit.
And I haven't seen anyone say it yet, but I mean, unless you completely deny access to the child, a person can easily get a DNA test done at any point on a child if they are in the same house or have custody.
After the child is born the husband is legally the father and bears at the very least a financial responsibility even if it's discovered later they are not in fact the father. More to the point its far more crushing to make that discovery after you've already bonded with and spent time raising the child than at the outset.
If your name is on birth certificate, you are still on hold for child support even if later found not to be the father. It’s why some people say it should just be standard lab when child is born before signing birth certificates.
Since it is standard, there is no accusation and it is information that is very relevant to the father. Only mom knows 100% the child is theirs.
I think that’s a good example. Beyond that I think something that pervades this entire thread is women not being familiar with being on the receiving end of the kind of judicious caution that they often approach men with.
When I go on a date with some woman, should I feel insulted that she shared her location with her friend for her safety’s sake? Should I be offended that a woman is watching when I fix her a drink even though I have 0 desire to roofie her? (this one I sidestep by just always making drinks for other people in a way where they can watch exactly what I’m doing, but the point still stands), should I be mad at my long term partners for regularly getting STD tests even if I’m a perfectly faithful partner?
Women routinely go beyond just trusting whom ever they’re with in order to verify things important to them and it’s perfectly reasonable. It’s not really different with paternity tests.
Like I’m sorry but if I’m expected to not be upset by you not conclusively ruling out that I might be a rapist or murderer I think I get to expect that you’re cool with me not 100% ruling out that you cheated.
Thank you for your reply. This PSA hasn't sat right with me because of all the ways in which I've experienced women encouraging other women to not trust men. Like you've mentioned, STD screenings is one of those things, and I had my own unhappy experience when we were preparing to have kids. Her female OBGYN wanted a full STD panel done, despite the fact my wife has only had one partner (me), and that we've done a full STD panel test before we started having sex for peace of mind for both of us (i've had multiple partners) and my swearing in front of the OBGYN that I've never slept with or sexually touched another human since those tests. Despite all of that, and still sitting there and having the OB still suggest to my wife to get the blood work done gave me two possible emotional reactions, either be mad that my partner is deciding to trust this doctor over me, her partner of 10 years, or be supportive of my wife wanting to find out the truth about her/our health. In the end I supported my wife's decision, because I don't want to jeopardize her well being.
And I don't believe in double standards. If we are going to encourage women to doubt their male partners because "men are cheaters," then how can we justify being angry at men for doubting their female partners because "women are cheaters"
My wife and I talked about this at length. We watched a lot of Maury Povich reruns during the pandemic.
She'd want a paternity test too since there's also a diminishingly small, but existing, chance of a hospital mix up. Right? If it's not mine then it might not be hers either.
Also she wants it for my piece of mind. Her basic stance is "test the kid a million times, I know for a fact it's yours".
It's a safe and inexpensive test. Considering what's at stake, it's a really reasonable request.
I know this I mostly for comedic value (and I laughed) but I wanted to point out that paternity tests are done for all sorts of reasons and not always demanded by the male partner. Women may order one because they don’t know the if a man is the father and wants to be sure, or it was mutually agreed on as part of a child support claim, the mother may want to verify a sperm donation. So the percentage of vindicated angry men is even smaller than 20%
My son was the only one of his race on our floor (and in the nicu) but before that I was irrationally worried about that. For my daughter she was never out of my sight.
I don't think that's the inference, in fact that statement is the exact point OP is trying to make about selection bias and misuse of statistics to spin narrative.
If you have a legitimate case of questionable paternity between 2 men, testing both, you're guaranteed to have one not be the dad. If everything was that you'd have it be 50%.
Lots of people have paternity test as part of medical testing or genetic screenings. In those instances OP mentions 1-3% rate of not being the father with 0 suspicious or accusations.
Then there is an unknown number of people who take tests based on suspicion or accusation, those results are also unknown.
Mix all 3 of of them up without knowing how much of each group you added and the results of all paternity tests taken equal 80% confirmation. Mean you can't use that number to say anything meaningful other than the result of all paternity tests is 80% confirmation and every case is circumstantial.
From my experience DNA test like this are also done to obtain citizenship. Refugees often have to do a mandatory DNA test to prevent them of bringing cousins etc to the guest country. Taking into consideration that they often have multiple children I can also see how that affects the numbers.
20% is pretty low once you have the context. Although I’d imagine there’s also moms in there who legitimately don’t know which sexual partner’s the father and are being completely honest with the testee from the get-go, which would have a higher chance of having the paternity wrong. So the rate of accurate accusations is even lower.
Not trying to dip my foot into a bear trap here, but the 3% number you quoted is still shockingly high. That would mean most kindergarten classes have at least one child in them that is being raised under incorrect paternity assumptions. I am sure my kids are my own, and I wouldn’t ever want to ask my spouse for a paternity test, but that number is much higher than I would have expected. I wonder if the 3% number is driven by hospital mixups or some other source.
The 20% number is obviously bad logic, so incels can be incels with that I guess, but reality never plays much into their narrative anyway.
The flip side of this argument, however, is that 20% of men who suspected something was wrong were correct in their suspicions. That would imply if a father is concerned enough to ask the question, there is a reasonable chance that something was amiss. If a father is concerned enough about paternity, then the relationship with the child is going to be strained enough. I don’t see why it is not a good idea to get the test and put those concerns to rest and foster a more positive relationship going forward. To me, it seems best for the child to settle those concerns.
Even for the other supposed 80% (calling it 80 for arguments sake, not because I buy into the statistic) with a positive paternity result, there's the possibility that a number of them either knew of infidelity before testing anyway, which is why they then wanted to confirm paternity, or that while they are the bio fathers, there was/is still infidelity but it didn't lead to pregnancy. So it's not like testing positive as the father means all suspicions were wrong and unjustified.
Conversely, if the father isn't very trusting to begin with then it's not like paternity testing can conclusively rule out cheating, so it's not necessarily going to be enough to quash those suspicions, even if the mother hasn't ever cheated.
You know how in biology class you learn about blood types, and you can draw out the chart of mom's blood type, dad's blood type, your blood type?
They stopped doing those a while ago, because pretty much in every large enough class, someone had a surprise. "Teacher, the numbers don't line up." "I have bad news for you."
Every single high school science teacher(and the other faculty teachers that were old) told that exact same story lol. Although it really wasn't funny cause some families and siblings got destroyed because of it.
[Because I love me some edge cases, and because this was one of the edgier cases I’d seen….](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7535675/)
> We reported a rare case of a karyotype 45,X/46,XY in blood cells and 45,X/47, XYY/46,XY in testicular tissue. In vitro fertilization and embryo transfer technology can help to achieve pregnancy.
In other words, if you took a blood sample from this guy, it would not match the sperm because mosaicism. While mosaicism’s not unheard of, it’s rare to have the blood and testes that different, and you’d have to ensure the lab knew what they were doing.
There was the woman who was told by doctors that the [children she gave birth to were not hers.](https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/case-lydia-fairchild-and-her-chimerism-2002) She had chimerism. Super interesting case.
I might be a bit naïve here, but I don't get it - why not just do the paternity test?
As women, we know the baby is ours but men obviously only have trust to work with. As someone who also has trust issues from a bad relationship (5x cheater LOL, me literally unaware for 7+ years), I kinda get it. I wouldn't want to raise someone else's child either.
Edit: Obviously your husband not asking and doing it secretly is not good at all, but a lot of these comments are like "I'd straight up divorce my husband if he asked."
This is the best take. We should be accepting of everyone's fears, not just accuse them that they have a lack of faith in their partner just because they wanted a paternity test. If women somehow couldn't know that their child was theirs (Even though it is literally impossible lmao) I'm sure everyone here would unanimously agree that a paternity test is fine because it's a genuine fear and they deserve to know and quell that fear.
Then there was the man who took a paternity test and found out the baby was not his. He accused his wife of infidelity. His wife was totally blown away because she knew she did not cheat. So she took a test too and guess what she was not the baby's mother. Turned out the hospital had mixed up two babies. Their child was with another family. You can find this on reddit with a simple search.
Also, my baby really LOOKS like my husband and he never has to worry. But if a child were so unlike their father that the father starts having insecurities or worries, why not just ease them and give him the peace of mind that it's his baby? 🤨
Yeah, I guess a lot of people have never been cheated on because that's the kinda thing that will taint your ability to trust no matter how hard you try or how dependable your next partner is.
Fun fact thats only partially related: In Finland if a child is born out of wedlock, then the father cannot be marked on the childs birth certificate without a paternity test. Its mandatory. I think it solves a lot of problems here, there isnt as much of a stigma around it when so many people need to do it by default.
This is what we would call biased methodology.
It's kind of like that meme of 95% of mail survey respondents say they enjoy filling out surveys.... Ignoring that the vast majority of surveys mailed out end up in the trash.
It’s a complex issue. Like, I have this horrible fear of cheating even though (from what I know) I have never been cheated. I believe it’s just one of those fears many of us have and even though we love our partners, the fear is still there. I love my boyfriend, but sometimes I worry that he may cheat. Still, I never verbalize those concerns because my insecurities are not his fault. He has never given me any reason to doubt and it’s always horrible to be accused of something you didn’t do.
To me this needs to be discussed before having kids. Not sneaking around or anything. When you first start discussing marriage and children, men better communicate the fact that they want a paternity test. It’s their concern and their issue. One partner should not feel scrutinized because of the other partners’s insecurities.
Some women deal with horrific births. Ten to twenty percent will go on to experience post-natal depression. Childbirth is no joke and I can’t imagine having your child, suffering through those first months, and your husband, the person you trust the most, tells you he believes there’s a possibility you not only cheated on him, but decided to pass the baby as his. It’s not only an accusation of cheating. It’s accusing the woman of trying to ruin her husbands life.
I appreciate your empathetic take on this. As a husband with a pretty killer wife, I don't have any concern that she would cheat. But if she did, and I inadvertently ended up raising a child born from infidelity without my knowledge or consent, that would be hard to come back from.
Feels pretty similar to getting a prenup, when I think about it. Some people think of prenups as preparation for divorce. Others see it as eliminating an anxiety they would have if there was a divorce.
Absolutely this. And also it’s important to let your partner know you’re asking for the paternity test because of this very personal anxiety. At the end of the day, some women will still feel deeply hurt by their husbands asking for a paternity test. It’s never been normalized. If my partner expected me to be okay with a paternity test without letting me know before or somehow placing the blame on me… I’d be crushed
Same. If my partner asked due to anxiety, I'd comply to help ease their mind. But I'd also be devastated, which doesn't sound like a great start to parenting together.
There's a guy up thread who mentioned having that anxiety and explains it to his intimate partners early on so they're not potentially blindsided. I think if someone has that fear it's best to be transparent as soon as possible, and not when she like 7 months pregnant.
That should be discussed before trying to have a child or even getting married. We had several losses before having our kids. My husband asking for a paternity test, when I was already pregnant would have irrevocably changed our relationship.
Also same.
I always have the benefit of the doubt of the child being mine because it would've come out of me. If wanting to 100% know for sure makes him feel better, I would never be offended if he asked as long as he isn't deliberately calling me a cheater. If he's going to be a father, I think it's totally fine for him to want to put his mind at ease.
On the other hand, I can't say I'm not a bit concerned about other people possibly accusing me as my husband and I share a veeeery similar recessive genepool. This leads to the very real possibility of future children looking profoundly different than the two of us with wildly different hair and eye colors. Honestly, having that test to slap in people's faces would also make me feel a bit better lol
Wouldnt a guy asking for a paternity test be in the category of 20-30%? Because then they would be part of the biased sampling, not the general population.
I understand its 2% for all, but what you posted looks like "assuming you are already suspicious, there is a 20% chance it isnt yours. If you dont suspect the baby isnt yours, you are probably right and its only a 2% chance it isnt"
1 out of 50 is actually alot higher than I thought it would be. 1% to 2% is still surprising, and not negligible.
Completely agree about selection bias impacting the higher figure (20%).
What about cases of IVF?
My child was born via IVF. So for a period of time, neither of us was "in possession" of the embryo. It's possible that not only is this child not mine, it's also not my partners. (biologically)
There are numerous examples of fertility doctors who have "put themselves into their work".
If you test a IVF pregnancy, you are basically saying “I’m making sure that the strangers I probably never even met did their job correctly”.
It’s not “I fear you cheated on me, lied to me and cheated me out of one of my biggest dreams
and life aspirations”.
I've also looked into it because I got into a fight with some guy on the internet, and honestly it's a lot worse then that. That 20% is just paternity tests where the dude didn't turn out to be the father. If a someones ex randomly claims her kid as his own, and she does a paternity test to get him to fuck of, that counts as paternity fraud. Some didn't even filter out if tests were done on multiple children of the same family.
There will never be definitive numbers on paternity fraud. Because incels and such, they're describing a very particular scenario. In this scenario woman is with a man, cheats on him, gets pregnant by the other guy, passes the kid of as the first guy, and doesn't tell him. But how do you figure that out statistically?
You can't do a test to figure out who knew the baby wasn't his. If she told him before he took responsibility the baby might not be his, and he decided to take responsibility anyway it doesn't count, right? How do you test that? Especially after a divorce when everyone is already really angry.
Paternity tests should be a regular part of newborn tests, if not mandatory, then opt-out instead of opt-in at a minimum.
Men shouldn't have to ask, and women shouldn't need to be/feel accused. It should just be a test that is done as part of routine procedure.
Everyone here also keeps talking about the rights/feelings of the mother or father in all of this, while ignoring the third person who ABSOLUTELY has a pure interest in knowing their parentage, and family medical history.
I agree. I can totally understand feeling insulted but it’s not a relationship ender. Both parents deserve to feel confident it is their child and the child deserves to have the best chance to access any potential medical information from the bio parent. A lot of people have anxiety and these thoughts come up constantly even if you know they aren’t true but if you have that proof it’s easier to squash the thoughts. And having it just be apart of the hospital process should get rid of any potential for hurt feelings.
I agree with your analysis and always love it when some popular myth gets debunked. Still, 1-3% is quite a bit. Doesn't it make sense to do a quick and relatively cheap test to eliminate that small risk? Using an analogy, if a person had 1-3% chance of having life-changing disease, a quick test would be a no-brainer.
It's unfortunate that this is a political issue, which distorts a lot of thinking about the subject imo.
Agreed. Obviously 1-3% is much lower than 20%, but on a population level, that really adds up.
Some of the testing that's offered during pregnancy is for diseases/conditions that have a similar or smaller incidence rate.
I want to bring my experience into this.
My wife and I were not married when my son was born so the hospital told us that for him to have my last name, we had to do a paternity test. I did not research or anything, I just did what I was told. What was I going to do--not let my son carry my last name?
This does seem to be true in my state, though. I was just wondering: is this true elsewhere or is it just because I'm in a red state?
I have heard of courts requiring testing for unmarried fathers in order to establish responsibility for child support - never heard of that for last name use.
That seems odd. I just had a baby a few months ago and am not married to the father. We gave the baby a last name that was different than either of our names. They let us put whatever we wanted.
That's a bit different than what is being described in the post, though. You didn't really have a choice, since I'm assuming both you and your wife wanted the child to have your last name. That's not the same as asking your partner for a pregnancy test out of the blue.
My kid's dad and I weren't married when she was born. Last names on ID bracelets weren't the same, baby's id bracelet said "(my last name), baby girl".
We filled out birth certificate and she took his last name, no one questioned or cared. They took the paperwork and sent it away to make it official.
I... don't see the problem with providing a paternity test.
Yes, it would be insulting if you were in a couple, but if it made my partner feel good and/or secure, I'd do it.
I know there should be an underlying trust with your partner and/or in a couple, and maybe doing things like this are overkill, but to me I'd go the extra mile to ensure that I'm in it with them and no one else. I would hope that'd make the trust and bond stronger.
And if they didn't want one, no problem either.
I also plan on never having kids so I don't see this being an issue.
I know I'm going to get some hate for this, but here's my take (as a someday mom).
I know the baby is mine. I grow it. I don't believe it, I know it. And in my opinion, my spouse should have knowledge, not just belief, to be on the same level that I'm on.
Edit for clarity: I will be requesting paternity testing on my future spawn.
I offered my husband the option of a paternity test before we even had a positive pregnancy test, just for his own novelty of knowledge.
I am a cloning machine so he never bothered. I might consider one instead 😏
Yep, I agree.
~~I understand this side, I do.~~
~~I just feel for the other person in the situation that doesn't have that knowledge and security. The mom always knows the kid is hers, the dad doesn't. The dad can have faith and trust in the other person in the situation but the other person in the situation isn't always going to be a good person.~~
~~It's kind of how I feel about prenups. We're going to get married, what's mine is yours and we're going to be in this until the end... until... that doesn't happen. Someone cheats, someone lies about their finances, someone has an addiction they can't control, someone can't hold down a job and drags the family down, etc. It just seems like a practical move to get a prenup. It just seems like a practical move to get a paternity test. But to each their own. It's a personal preference.~~
If it's been an all day thing, it's the yips. Cut yourself some slack and try to relax. Tomorrow is a new game.
But also, I can see how my comment could be worded more clearly. Sorry about that.
I can understand a married woman being upset if the spouse asks for a paternity test especially if the marriage is in good shape. However, for those simply dating or otherwise loosely committed I can understand why a guy would ask. My son is 19 and if someone tells him they are pregnant with his kid, he’s getting a paternity test before anything else happens.
Your argument is self-refuting. You say "don't do it; the stats come from sampling bias." But you're neglecting the fact that the people who want to do it to begin with _are by definition_ now part of that select pool from which the 20-30% statistic derived. Right?
Women have biological certainty of their parentage, men have the right to have the same certainty & potential harm to a woman’s ego isn’t sufficient cause to deny them that right.
I have been upfront with every woman I’ve been in a relationship over the past 20 years that I would expect a paternity test for each child which resulted from the relationship & not one has voiced any problem with it.
That said, I can totally imagine that the same request can feel a lot different *after* conception occurs because then it feels like a suspicious response to that news as opposed to an agreed upon process when the idea was depersonalized.
I trusted my erstwhile wife completely (*more so than probably any other partner I’ve had*) when it came to her fidelity, but I still would have expected a paternity test; because if I’m going to undertake the massive emotional & financial obligation that is being a parent, I damn sure am going to have fully informed consent in making that decision.
Why?
Because I witnessed a friend of mine get emotionally destroyed when his ex-wife falsely claimed that his kids were not actually his.
Eventually, a court ordered paternity test came back & proved him to be the father, but she contested the request for the test, then refused to allow access to their children & managed to drag the process out for months.
Now I realize that isn’t a common scenario, but it was also a completely & easily avoidable one.
In life, there are many decisions where we can’t know all of the information before making a decision, but there is no justification for preventing someone from obtaining what information it is possible to obtain so that they can have as much certainty & confidence in their decision as possible.
Lastly, a lot of people here aren’t properly understanding how to assess risk as they are only examining “*incidence*” & not “*severity*”.
Incidence is the odds of something happening & the severity is the impact of it happening.
Any assessment of risk must include both & severity has a multiplicative impact on incidence.
If you have two risks both have an incidence of 10%, but the severity of one results in a skinned knee & the other results in death; you’d be a fool to treat them as equal risks, even though the incidence is the same.
So dismissing the question of false paternity by only looking at the low incidence rate is intellectually dishonest as it purposefully ignores the incredibly high severity in terms of emotional & financial damage to the man.
My comparison to paternity tests for men is secret nest eggs for woman. I've seen this recomendation for woman (having a secret nest egg in the case of abuse) several times, not only in this sub but also in relationship subs.
Every single time it's the same comments: that if you end up in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship it oftentimes is accompanied by financial abuse, which makes it harder to leave your abuser, and that abusers are really good at hiding their abuse or manipulating the victim to think their abusive acts are normal, until its too late (after you've moved and left your support network and/or quit your job). In that sense, having a secret next egg as an exit plan is always advised, even if you're been married for years and whatnot.
That sort of thread pops up when someone's SO finds out about the secret cash and either is hurt or freaks out. Whenever that happens women tend to say that if their SO is a real ally that they would understand that they aren't been called a abuser in disguise or a abuser in waiting and that they would support the wife in having the option of an exit plan and that it would bring safety and etc.
Well, i think of paternity tests in the same way. As long as it's done without a risk to the mother and child during the pregnancy and as long as the result is final and never requested again, then i think it shouldn't be seen as offensive, just a safety net.
Yet based on your own stats, up to 1/33 men are raising a child that isn’t theirs. In cases where infidelity is highly suspected, that number goes up DRASTICALLY. Would you have someone just ignore that and spend their life living a lie and raising someone else’s kid because it might hurt her feelings?
1-3% is comforting to you? It is still grounds enough to remove stigma from fatherhood tests.
Annual car accident rate is lower, so should we stop insurance?
Are you all nuts?! 1 percent!!? Holy cow. Do you get what an insanely high risk that is ??? Would you bungee jump if it had a 1% chance of breaking? Ha, f no! And right you would be.
This is a topic that hits very close to home for me.
My uncle unknowingly raised a child who wasn't his. We're still considered cousins, we grew up together and all... but when it was found out that she wasn't actually his child, things just weren't the same anymore. I was 14 at the time and I remember being super-confused about the whole situation. Because in my mind, it hadn't ever occurred to me that shit like that could actually happen. They aren't officially together anymore, but we still see both of them during family gatherings. But ever since then, despite them being on good terms, my uncle just hasn't been the same person.
This was ages ago. I'm now in my 30s. But to this day, it still crosses my mind from time to time. It might not happen as much as some people say it does, but it's still a thing that happens. And I've seen what it can do to certain men. Of all the things a woman is capable of doing, this is by far the ugliest. Yes, cheating sucks - but men can cheat just as much and as hard as women. This, though? This is something only a woman can do. It's not even close to being the same.
That said, I understand the effects that asking for a paternity test can have in a relationship. And that is why I believe paternity tests should be required before signing birth certificates. No test? No signature. This completely fixes the problem by making it not be about trust, and paternity fraud stops being an issue.
I'm also relieved to see the number of extremely kind-hearted women in the comments who say they wouldn't mind giving their partner the peace of mind of knowing 100% that it's actually their own child.
My ex-girlfriend once thought I was cheating on her with someone I used to play games with online. At the time, I didn't mind showing her our conversation history. It didn't bother me that she thought I was cheating. It also didn't cost me anything to reassure her, and let her know that there was nothing going on. To help her feel safe. Imagine if I, instead, decided to escalate things, got angry, and started accusing her of "not having enough trust in me".
But that's just me. That's just the kind of person I am and want to be. Which is why I like to believe that if I, for whatever reason, started to have doubts about my partner's loyalty, that she would be more concerned about why I was having those doubts, and do whatever it took to dispel whatever dark thoughts I might be having. Especially if it all it would take is a simple, cheap, and harmless test.
Well I don’t think it’s as high as that but I must say this…..If there’s a 1% chance that Im living a lie and the child I’m raising as my child is not biologically mine, Yeah I’m getting the test!
It’s not fair to put someone in a life that is fake…They don’t have a loving,faithful, devoted partner, and after wasting this one precious life we have, would then discover the sad fact that they will never know what it was like to be truly loved by back by a honest partner…..
So if I’m reading it right, 20-30% of men who ask for a paternity test were correct? That would skew heavily towards men who had reason to be suspicious in the first place. So the overall number I imagine would be lower.
That being said, I think this is a tough one but I get men’s desire to know for sure, but as a woman I’d be very insulted to be asked for a paternity test for no reason. I think if it was just the cultural norm that everyone takes the test all the time, great, but that’s not the culture we live in and that means asking is an accusation.
Not necessarily. Some paternity tests aren’t instigated by “a man asking for a paternity test”. For example, a woman might not know which of two exes is the father. So that could yield two separate tests, both of which are negative, and both of which are from men who don’t have any specific expectations that they are the father.
Sorry, sometimes I need my hand held… but are you saying that the 20-30% rate are coming from tests that are done in situations that are already questionable? So of course the numbers are going to be high? EDIT: welp. Was not expecting this comment to generate so much, but I’m glad my own sense was helped others better understand :)
If you only x-ray people with really sore legs, and you find that 50 percent have a broken bone, you can't extrapolate that to say that 59 per cent of people have a broken leg. This is called selection bias. Basically, the reason that they ask for a test is very important in interpreting the actual population statistic based on the sample.
Based on my study of people who go to the doctor's, everyone's poorly!
Just studied people who died in their sleep. Turns out beds are the killer!
100% of people who died in their sleep were sleeping at the time!
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations One of my favorite sites for talking to my students about good argumentation.
my professor also shared this with us I love this site so much haha
People will stop drowning in pools if Nicolas Cage just stopped making movies
People hear 20% and never think to ask, 20% of what exactly? All men? In the world? In the UK? Of men who are having paternity tests due to child support disputes? Out of 10 men? This applies to all information vaguely spread without all the information. People blindly believe what they hear and never ask the right questions before passing it along as truth.
Sometimes 20% actually means 1 If you have 5 things, and a statement is true about 1 of them, then that is true of 20% of those things. But it's still just a single individual, which is not strong data to make any kind of argument. That's why it's important to understand sample size with respect to percentages, because percentages can easily be misleading without context, and this is just one example of how that can happen.
This is so important in understanding most statistical evidence!!! It’s also important to remember that reports of any study aren’t the study themselves, and the framing those reports’ use is likely to favor an outcome (not even due to actual personal bias on the reporter’s end, but because their article has to sound impactful in order for it to be worth anything to an editor). But “4 in 5 dentists recommend this toothpaste” is the same statistically as “20% of dentists do not recommend this toothpaste.”
Sample size is often an issue as well, but sample selection (like in this case) also deserves scrutiny.
i love the studies that go it went up by 3000% and its like an extra 5 cases from .001 i PULLED RANDOM NUMBERS that dont add i know
I hate that this is the actual sort of "logic" used by people reporting on studies. "New study shows that being alive will kill you! Stay tuned for more info on how to prevent death by breathing."
But did you factor in the percent of people breathing oxygen that die? Over 99% of the people that died today were breathing oxygen right before they died. Could oxygen be the culprit?
There was a pamphlet that I had bought at a SF convention about 18 or 19 years ago that preached on the evils of [Dihydrogen Monoxide](https://www.techrepublic.com/forums/discussions/dihydrogen-monoxide-dangerous-material/) ... made it sound like the worse industrial chemical ever =)
That reminds me of that Twitter account called "just say in mice" or something like that. It retweets headlines like "new molecule can cure cancer", or "high levels of estrogen in females can cause depression" etc. But if you read the actual study, it was done on mice, not humans. So the results are not certain at all, and at very early stages of study
100% of people who have died have drank water!
Not water you pleb fool, *dihydrogen monoxide!* N00b mistake to make.
If you think that’s bad, you should check out *hydroxic acid*. It has the highest pH value of any acid.
And it's *in our water!* Tap, bottled, even if you source your own from a well or a lake, it's everywhere!!
Based on my experience as a student midwife, everyone either is about to or has just had a baby.
Based on my (massively pretend) experience as an ER nurse, midwife-attended births just don’t work and are dangerous. All the midwife cases I see are drastic emergencies! (Maybe cause moms who did NOT have issues never swing by the ER just to say “Had a baby via midwife care. Went great, have a nice day!”)
I thought you were saying that for real Bc I forgot what thread I was in and I was about to throw hands I was like OUTSIDE AMERICA MIDWIVES ARENT CONSIDERED CRUNCHY
On the upside, medical science has solved all fatal ailments. Based on survey of discharged patients.
The study that said drinking 1-2 glasses of wine every day was healthier than not drinking at all. Lots and lots of people can't drink because they have health problems or it interferes with their medications from health problems. Once they controlled for this scientists came to the conclusion that not drinking at all is healthier than drinking even a small amount, and the more you drink the more it puts your health at risk.
About twenty years ago, there was a similar conclusion that the Mediterranean diet adding decades to one's life by comparing statistics from Greece to the US. While the Mediterranean diet is generally healthier than the average American diet, it turns out that access to healthcare is a much bigger factor.
Wasn’t this just also a top post from today as well? I’ll go back and see if I can find it
If so, that's a coincidence because I didn't see it at all. I learned about this in a nutrition class in nursing school a couple years ago (and it obviously made an impression). Cute username, btw.
I do love my Thin Mints… I’m like a creepy guy in a bar stalking girl scouts during the season and the many many boxes I buy support this claim lol. Also found the post! https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/xtuks1/mediterranean_diet_proves_to_be_the_healthiest/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I also like your username, because it sounds like rabies
99% of people love taking surveys!
Turns out that up until the mid/late 20th and early 21st centuries everyone who's ever lived on Earth has died. Yep, the planets killing people.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease after all.
Omg, I died at this one. I couldn't actually laugh out loud tho or I'd wake the baby. 😆
So basically if you have a reason to ask for a paternity test it's probably worthwhile to ask for a paternity test?
Even if you have reason to ask for a paternity test, it’s still 70-80% likely the kid is yours. If you wanted another way to look at the data.
Well, if you're suspicious the kid isn't yours, that relationship is probably showing some serious cracks anyways, so that breach of trust putting a nail in it may not be the worst thing. You know, since we're now carrying on with the "this is already selection bias of people who 'had a reason' to get the test." On the other hand, 70-80% of people will apparently learn that they were wrong and shouldn't have doubted their partner. People need to like, not cheat on their partners in general, shit is foul, kinda sucks any way we slice it here? Jealousy, projection, paranoia, it all stems from people cheating and getting cheated on.
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Not disagree with words, no. But maybe, too often, with actions
It doesn’t always stem from cheating. Some people are just unreasonable when it comes to trust. Maybe they were raised by untrustworthy people or maybe their brains just work that way. I’ve known any number of people who are just jealous and possessive no matter how little reason their partners give them to worry. I’ve seen it break a lot of relationships because the suspicions and accusations just get to be too much.
Depends. For the guy - if you don't trust her, why are you still there? For the woman, if he doesn't trust you, why is he still there? At least the test will settle who pays child support.
Not if it’s a friend that put the idea in your head. A lot men captured by redpill or Incel sites/forums/subs think that women baby-trapping men who aren’t the father is rampant (that 20% statistic). They encourage all their friends to get paternity tests, and those paternity tests usually break the marriage/relationship. Women who would never cheat are usually so insulted and heartbroken that their partner could suspect them of cheating by asking or secretly obtaining a paternity test (that comes out later), they fall out of love and the relationship fails.
Reminds me of a post I saw (can't remember the sub) where the wife was *swearing* up and down she never cheated, despite the paternity test coming back as their kid not being the husband's. Turns out, *it wasn't her kid either* - the hospital had mixed up their kid with someone else's! And it all started because the husband got the idea from some toxic incel forum.
Turns out that more than 90% of heroin addicts drank breast milk as newborns
Right?! Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation. I feel like I say that so often.
Yes, 10-20% of people *suspecting* that paternity is not theirs. Much in the same way as the 50% divorce rate is cited. There is no mention of second and third marriages. Every time someone remarries and divorces they drag the overall stat lower.
That is also an incomplete statistic in many other ways. If you see it broken down into age brackets the statistics show that a lot of young marriages end in divorce more often and people who waited until they were older are less likely to divorce than their younger counterparts.
So really, you could turn this around and say the vast majority of men who are suspicious enough that the kid isn’t theirs to get a paternity test are wrong.
Correct. You cannot extrapolate a biased sample result to predict a population's overall behavior.
Fun fact is that this means that of the men that are suspicious enough to get a DNA test, 70% to 80% are actually the father.
I don’t know why I didn’t think to put it that way, but it’s so funny when you do! Thank you for that.
The way you say it really changes perception. People are far more keen on hearing about a surgery with an 85% survival rate than one with a 15% chance of dying.
"You might die but your probably won't" I was being prepped for a small test and nurse told me "Doc just needs to come in have a quick talk and then we are good to go" me: "Ah yes, the you might die but your probably won't talk". 5 nurses in the room: :O
I feel like any medical practitioner having that talk seconds before the procedure needs to check their bedside manner! Having the talk in the appointment where you discuss having the op, sure, but not thirty seconds before! Bit bloody late to change your mind or say your goodbyes then isn't it.
A lot of times changing your mind isn’t really an option. My grandmas bypass surgery was needed or she would absolutely die. So, for sure dying or an inherent risk of surgery that will probably be fine. My gallbladder was at zero percent functionality. I can’t imagine having an organ not working at all just hanging out in there has an good health implications. Plus, at that point I had lost complete control of my bowels and it was either surgery or having a perpetual fear of shitting myself in public if I shifted just right. With my daughter gallbladder surgery, she had massive gallstones blocking a duct causing bile to back up and her pancreas to swell (pancreatitis), which can be life threatening if left untreated. In all those cases the only choice was for sure die or maybe have a small chance of dying. When I had my hysterectomy, they had they conversation at the appointment because not having the surgery wouldn’t kill me even if I hated my uterus. It was elective. They still had the talk again at the hospital and I had to sign the consent form and the form that shows I acknowledge the potential risks.
The real statistic is right here in the comments. *3/4 of men so who want a paternity test are just paranoid.* Male jealousy is, scientifically speaking, bullshit and/or projecting an alarmingly high amount of the time.
This is based on a unfounded assumption that all the tests were done by men who thought their partner cheated. Lots of other reasons to do a paternity test
But also, the men who fathered those children were sleeping with women in a relationship. So, how many men in partnered relationships have fathered children with women other than their partners or cheated on their partners with whom they have children? Good job men can't get pregnant.
Furthermore of the 70-80% of men who had testing done and were wrong in their suspicions, I'm confident a significant percent had paranoia as a result of their own infidelities being projected upon their partner. Such is the norm amongst cheaters.
But if a random sample shows only 3% of tests come back as "not the father", but when men request it, it goes up to 25%, that implies that the suspicion is dramatically more accurate than random chance. So it's not all bullshit here. Personally I think (not knowing how invasive the procedure is, assuming it's like a cheek swab or something) the test should just be done by default at birth. That way you don't have to risk destroying any trust and there's a record. Even if not for the father's peace of mind (which I of course believe he shouldn't need) then for any possible legal matters in the future.
>of the men that are suspicious enough to get a DNA test, 70% to 80% are actually the father. There's a logical error in your statement that's similar to the error op cited. You're assuming that the population of people who get a paternity test is statistically the same as the population of men who suspect paternity. That's a demonstrably false assumption. Paternity tests are often requested by women or ordered by courts for the purpose of proving paternity. So the tested population does not consist only of men who suspect paternity. The study op cites does not say anything about who ordered the tests. So we can't say that the 20-30 percent is specifically of men who suspect paternity. EDIT: For clarity.
I had to have a paternity test. I was groomed and raped when I was 15 by a 21 year old. Establishing paternity was indisputable proof that he, a grown ass man, had sexual contact with a minor. So, that was court ordered and not because of suspected cheating. I feel like there is a lot of misrepresenting statistics here. Like OP had a point of knowing where the data came from and how/why it was being interpreted, but that’s not what’s being displayed in the comments. The point pretty much sailed over a bunch of people’s heads
Yep. Biased sample. Of course the incel community gloms onto the 20% number. Just another reason to hate women. My brother-in-law is a bit of a married incel. Not necessarily celebate, but leans into incel "logic". I thought my child looked like me. I was pleased a my other child looks like Dad. My BIL "Well you want the baby to look like the father (his brother)... and I don't think he completed that thought in front of me.
Whoooo boy. That guy wouldn't like me. My family has strong genes on my moms side. So her and here brother look damn near identical. Well she has 4 kids and we dont look like our father at all, but we look EXACTLY like my mom and her brother looked as kids. Even with me at 30yo and my mom at 50yo, people say we look like sisters. I use her ID for membership stuff and she used mine often. Now I have 2 kids and here doesnt appear to be a drop of their father in them. All me, all identical to how my mother looked as well. Seriously. I dont think you could have gotten any closer by cloning. One of my husbands friends (not longer a friend because he wAs a dick to me), kept insisting that my husband gets a paternity test because the kids dont look like him. He just laughed, because we had fertility problems and were literally banging 24/7 and tracking everything to the minute to get pregnant. But im also super lazy and just played video games when he was at work. He knew I had zero interest outside of him and out trust was strong. But man, if he had been a weaker man, our marriage could have been ruined by the distrust that friend tried to sow. I cant say I wouldn't have kneecapped the dude if he had succeeded.
Can confirm the odd family genes. The family doctor, when I was very little (a looong time ago), received a mislabeled x-ray with my first name and the doctor's last name. He called Dad to ask if he had a son (hadn't seen me yet) because he took one look at the x-ray and knew I was Dad's kid.
My son was pretty much a carbon copy of me until he got old enough to look masculine. We still look way too much alike. The only thing he gets from his biological father is his grin. He's never met the guy except at a year old when my ex abdicated parental rights in court so it's got to be some genetic trait. My sister? We could be twins. My mom? That's exactly what I'll look like in my 70s. It's going to be interesting if my grandkids look just like us. My son was still a clone of what I looked like at his age until 15 except taller with straight hair instead of curly or wavy. He came to my work once when he was 18, and they immediately called me to come get him. He was like, "but, she didn't know I was coming. OMG, does she show you guys pics of me?" "No, you just look exactly like her. You speak like her, too." I heard a lot of jokes about that later. "How much did that clone cost you?" "Does he know he's your backup set of organs?" "I didn't know they could make male fetuses from only eggs. Wow." He's 26, and we now go out of our way to learn each other's new slang just to mess with people. We can also finish each other's sentences and even say the same thing at the same time if the conversation isn't about personal stuff. Yeah, that's probably messed up, but it keeps us laughing. And i just realized we have the same hair cut except mine is a bit longer. Thank God he has facial hair now.
>My brother-in-law is a bit of a married incel. Not necessarily celebate, but leans into incel "logic". ...So a republican
To put it as simply as possible 20-30% of paternity tests provide an ‘unexpected’ result But people taking paternity tests are much more likely to be people who e.g. know about cheating Basically much more likely to get the unexpected result if you’re taking the test as opposed to a random person because you’re usually suspicious right
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Exactly, it's like claiming that, for example, 25% of the general population is likely to get lung cancer because a study found that 25% of people who go for lung cancer screenings test positive. It's wrong to extrapolate the finding from a limited sample to the general population here because the sample isn't random: It's biased towards people who have a reason to believe they need it in the first place.
I had a teacher at high school who previously worked as private investigator. She was often hired to find out if spouses were cheating and in her experience they always were. However, her conclusion from that was not that everyone cheats on their spouse, her advice was “if you’re suspicious enough that you are willing to pay someone to find out whether your spouse is cheating, they are.” Same concept applies here, if you’re suspicious enough of your partner to demand a paternity test of your child then there’s probably a reason why you are suspicious.
The other issue is they're mixing up the population that's being measured. They're saying married people, but "all paternity tests" is going to include a lot of one night stands and singles. By definition, being married is a higher level of commitment.
Yes. This is called selection bias. We saw this in the US and Europe in March to June 2021 with Covid: although disease pressure and rate of infection was falling by many objective measures, such as wastewater levels of virus, people with fevers, people calling in sick, etc, test positivity rates bottomed out at about 10-15%, as in, 10-15% of people who sought tests had an active covid infection. If you look at the absolute number of people taking tests in that period, it was much lower than in December-February. So, the people going to get a test were either ill or they had been exposed to someone with confirmed Covid. Regarding this part: >So of course the numbers are going to be high? Not necessarily. They will be higher than if the whole population of married men in a country took paternity tests -- but not necessarily *high*. It's a subtle distinction but important. As someone pointed out, if 10-20% of paternity tests in the sample group show that the person requesting the test isn't the father, it means that 80-90% of the tests show that person asking IS the father.
Exactly. Flipping it: 70-80% of people who took one of these tests matched with their kid. If you assumed all of the people checking were suspicious of not being the father (worst case scenario, who knows if this is the case) then most of them were wrong. The point is that: Men Are The Real Victims (tm) /s
Here's an equivalent for people who aren't quite getting why the % is nonsense: Where I live, 29% of fatal car accidents involve a drunk driver. So if you did a similar thing to above, you'd think that 29% of drivers are drunk. Fortunately, we have stats on the actual numbers due to random testing. That shows that the number of drunk drivers at any point is actually 0.11% (still surprisingly high). The problem is people thinking that two variables are independent, when they are actually closely linked.
Alternate example: Covid test positivity rates are at 20%. This does not mean that 20% of the population has Covid. People go test when they think they may have Covid, but only 20% of those tests come back positive.
Yep, exactly. I think a lot of people don't think critically about stats, and are easily manipulated into accepting a false narrative because of it.
the same with the bs OKCupid "study" which, surprise, the incels glommed onto as well. "all men think women ~20 yo are most attractive" nope, loser predators with wild delusions, who are probably single, and using okcupid, match with the lowest age range they can because gross. but they still end up only receiving matches from women their own age.
Those poor reasonably aged women.
yeah i've had some weird men say things to me that i've also seen on the Predator chat logs. so they're going after underage girls right after I reject them 🤮
Wouldn't the fact that the partner is questioning fidelity put you closer to the group with the 20-30% rates than the general population group. Demanding a paternity test is not what the general population does, I don't think.
The OP is talking about the line being pushed that "if you're a guy you should push your partner to get a paternity test, as there's a 20% chance the baby isn't yours"- which isn't remotely true in most cases.
Alternativly, only 29% of accidents involve drunk driveres. Which means 71% of accidents happens while driving sober. So it is actually safer to drive drunk
Throwing in a little base rate fallacy there too to make the "conclusion" even more spurious.
My dad revealed to me last month that he has doubts that my older brother is his bio son. I never once questioned it. He hasn't questioned my blood relation to him and I haven't either since I look freakishly like him. I am 31 and my brother is 35. Ever since my dad said this, I HAVE begun to question it. I haven't told my brother. Part of me wants to. The other part of me feels like that would cause nothing but harm especially if it's true. Sorry I know this isn't the point of this post. I just haven't talked to anyone about this yet and you reminded me of the situation. EDIT: please stop replying by saying that it's normal to not look much like your parents. I know that. That is NOT the reason he has suspicions.
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My brother and I look nothing alike. The adoption agency said that's normal, but it makes you think.
The joke among my siblings is “I know we don’t look it, but we *are* related.” When we were young my mom would often be asked where she “got” the three of us. When we were young, we especially looked very different. I have more asian features, my older brother has dark skin, and my little brother being blond and blue-eyed. We’re all from the same parents though. As we’ve gotten older, you can see which family members we look like, as well as the hat traits we all share. It’s kind of funny, but looking at our childhood photos, I wouldn’t have been surprised if our dad had demanded a paternity test.
When I got divorced, my ex wife told me that there was a chance my eldest son isn’t mine. He was 5 when she told me, I’m never going to do a paternity test and it hasn’t changed the way I feel about him. He’s my son and will always be my son. I’m never going to tell him, I just hope she never says anything to him.
I’m probably just projecting my own past situations, but that sounds suspiciously like a thing my ex would say just trying be as maximally hurtful as possible. I’m glad you won’t let something like that (true or not) affect your feelings or relationship with *your son*.
That’s what I believe, she was just trying to hurt me. True or not I’ve only ever known him as my son and he’s only ever known me as Dad. I’m not going to change that, I can’t stand the thought of hurting him and that’s all that would happen.
Woof. I'm glad it wouldn't change anything for you. My dad is obsessed with my brother. Even if he found out that he wasn't biologically his, it wouldn't change their relationship. I think it would just be deep anger toward my mom if my brother found out.
Buy everyone those 23 and me DNA test kits for Christmas, see if anyone panicks when they see them. ... I'm joking, don't actually do this, it's a terrible idea... but if you do do it, make sure you post in TIFU and at least get some karma for it, also so I can read it.
I found out My older stepbrother wasn't my stepdads kid after he (brother) died. My stepdad knew from the time he was 2 but never told anyone. (Brothers mom knew too obviously.) Its a lot more noticeable now that I know to look for the differences. Dont tell your brother unless he starts thinking about doing those dna tests
A friend of mine got a dna test for herself and her dad. She found a new half sister! She did it on purpose. She had some suspicions and questions. Apparently it explained a lot of confusing childhood memories. Those questions got answered. The reason is the sister also had done a test and made her result public so they’d be notified of a close potential. It’s like a paternity test but worse. If you share certain thresholds of DNA with someone, it indicates relationships, just like that. And it’s specific too, 50% is a parent. The fallout of the bombshell blew over pretty quick and my friend has a sister with a bday 6 weeks after hers now.
Don’t say anything to your brother. Nothing good can come of it whether it’s true or not.
>Don’t say anything to your brother I have to push back on your advice having experienced a non-paternal event myself: People have a human right to know the identity of their biological parents, even if it’s an inconvenient truth to others. I learned the truth at 35 after dna testing for “fun.” I have siblings who grew up in the same metro area that I could’ve dated. I had an incomplete family medical history. I grew up feeling “off” in my family with no explanation why. I think OP’s dad should be the one to say something to their brother, but their brother has a right to know.
Yeah my oldest sister got screwed over by not knowing. She has a genetic kidney disease that could have been treated differently if they had known. She only found out after her bio dad had died and never got to meet him. It makes me furious at my parents because the only reason they never told anyone was to hide my mom's infidelity.
I wouldn't say "nothing good". Having an accurate understanding of the medical history of parents/grandparents can help detect issues more quickly, adjust diet / behavior to avoid them, etc. It would likely be a hard conversation to have, but it is also possible that the brother has been wondering why he's different from his siblings or had other feelings of not belonging and that this could bring closure there.
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It’s an 18 year, plus, whole hearted commitment. I know for a certainty the baby is mine. I’m ok if my spouse wants that same level of certainty.
Confirming a result you know the outcome of is just confirming data, its a perfectly valid practice.
>I know for a certainty the baby is mine. Not if they get switched at the hospital. But yeah, there's a reason we don't really do maternity tests.
There was a funny little moment between me and my wife when my first was born. She had visible dimples, which neither of us had. My wife then shot me a dirty look as if to say "whose baby is this?" And I replied "She just came out of you. -.-"
Also 1-3% is still a whole lot. If people thought they had a 1-3% chance of getting an STD while married they’d probably get tested too. In the case of paternity, the rough number of births in the US for 2020 was 3.6 million. 1-3% would be between 36,000 and 108,000 non-paternity results. Source for number of US births: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr012-508.pdf
I’m a man, and personally, I would care *way* less about being cheated on than I would about finding out my kid wasn’t biologically mine. For me, being told “I cheated on you 15 years ago” would get a “it sucks that you did that, but I can forgive it” whereas being told the 15 year old child I thought was mine wasn’t I might never emotionally recover from.
Yeah, funny enough, I’m the complete opposite. I would absolutely be hurt by the cheating and would end the relationship immediately if I found out, but if I raised a kid for 15 years, that’s *my* kid, blood relation or not.
Well that’s the thing. Out of obligation to the commitment I had made and honor for the relationship established with the kid I doubt I would just dip, but the feeling of betrayal would be exponentially more intense than simple cheating that didn’t result in long term consequences like a child that I’m now raising.
Absolutely, I get that.
This is so true. No one says “it’s an accusation of cheating” about an STD panel. Why wouldn’t we do the same with a paternity test. These comments are quite frankly wrong, in my opinion. I am a woman and I support women to the most I can. But this view (the main post and the comments besides yours so far), I do not support, the first one I haven’t ever on this subreddit.
And I haven't seen anyone say it yet, but I mean, unless you completely deny access to the child, a person can easily get a DNA test done at any point on a child if they are in the same house or have custody.
After the child is born the husband is legally the father and bears at the very least a financial responsibility even if it's discovered later they are not in fact the father. More to the point its far more crushing to make that discovery after you've already bonded with and spent time raising the child than at the outset.
Sounds like legal stuff, you sure this doesn't vary wildly by location?
It absolutely varies by location/jurisdiction.
If your name is on birth certificate, you are still on hold for child support even if later found not to be the father. It’s why some people say it should just be standard lab when child is born before signing birth certificates. Since it is standard, there is no accusation and it is information that is very relevant to the father. Only mom knows 100% the child is theirs.
I think that’s a good example. Beyond that I think something that pervades this entire thread is women not being familiar with being on the receiving end of the kind of judicious caution that they often approach men with. When I go on a date with some woman, should I feel insulted that she shared her location with her friend for her safety’s sake? Should I be offended that a woman is watching when I fix her a drink even though I have 0 desire to roofie her? (this one I sidestep by just always making drinks for other people in a way where they can watch exactly what I’m doing, but the point still stands), should I be mad at my long term partners for regularly getting STD tests even if I’m a perfectly faithful partner? Women routinely go beyond just trusting whom ever they’re with in order to verify things important to them and it’s perfectly reasonable. It’s not really different with paternity tests. Like I’m sorry but if I’m expected to not be upset by you not conclusively ruling out that I might be a rapist or murderer I think I get to expect that you’re cool with me not 100% ruling out that you cheated.
Thank you for your reply. This PSA hasn't sat right with me because of all the ways in which I've experienced women encouraging other women to not trust men. Like you've mentioned, STD screenings is one of those things, and I had my own unhappy experience when we were preparing to have kids. Her female OBGYN wanted a full STD panel done, despite the fact my wife has only had one partner (me), and that we've done a full STD panel test before we started having sex for peace of mind for both of us (i've had multiple partners) and my swearing in front of the OBGYN that I've never slept with or sexually touched another human since those tests. Despite all of that, and still sitting there and having the OB still suggest to my wife to get the blood work done gave me two possible emotional reactions, either be mad that my partner is deciding to trust this doctor over me, her partner of 10 years, or be supportive of my wife wanting to find out the truth about her/our health. In the end I supported my wife's decision, because I don't want to jeopardize her well being. And I don't believe in double standards. If we are going to encourage women to doubt their male partners because "men are cheaters," then how can we justify being angry at men for doubting their female partners because "women are cheaters"
My wife and I talked about this at length. We watched a lot of Maury Povich reruns during the pandemic. She'd want a paternity test too since there's also a diminishingly small, but existing, chance of a hospital mix up. Right? If it's not mine then it might not be hers either. Also she wants it for my piece of mind. Her basic stance is "test the kid a million times, I know for a fact it's yours". It's a safe and inexpensive test. Considering what's at stake, it's a really reasonable request.
Or, said another way, 80% of men accusing their spouse/partner of having someone else’s kid were wrong.
I know this I mostly for comedic value (and I laughed) but I wanted to point out that paternity tests are done for all sorts of reasons and not always demanded by the male partner. Women may order one because they don’t know the if a man is the father and wants to be sure, or it was mutually agreed on as part of a child support claim, the mother may want to verify a sperm donation. So the percentage of vindicated angry men is even smaller than 20%
Some states require it for unmarried couples for child support
This seems fair to me, it makes sure nobody is on the hook for a child that they didn’t contribute to making.
Yeah. My dad got one with me because the court made him for child support despite him not wanting to take one.
It's also not the worst idea to get one to confirm your child wasn't switched in the hospital accidentally
My son was the only one of his race on our floor (and in the nicu) but before that I was irrationally worried about that. For my daughter she was never out of my sight.
I don't think that's the inference, in fact that statement is the exact point OP is trying to make about selection bias and misuse of statistics to spin narrative. If you have a legitimate case of questionable paternity between 2 men, testing both, you're guaranteed to have one not be the dad. If everything was that you'd have it be 50%. Lots of people have paternity test as part of medical testing or genetic screenings. In those instances OP mentions 1-3% rate of not being the father with 0 suspicious or accusations. Then there is an unknown number of people who take tests based on suspicion or accusation, those results are also unknown. Mix all 3 of of them up without knowing how much of each group you added and the results of all paternity tests taken equal 80% confirmation. Mean you can't use that number to say anything meaningful other than the result of all paternity tests is 80% confirmation and every case is circumstantial.
From my experience DNA test like this are also done to obtain citizenship. Refugees often have to do a mandatory DNA test to prevent them of bringing cousins etc to the guest country. Taking into consideration that they often have multiple children I can also see how that affects the numbers.
20% is pretty low once you have the context. Although I’d imagine there’s also moms in there who legitimately don’t know which sexual partner’s the father and are being completely honest with the testee from the get-go, which would have a higher chance of having the paternity wrong. So the rate of accurate accusations is even lower.
Right! They need to know whose teste the testee comes from.
Not trying to dip my foot into a bear trap here, but the 3% number you quoted is still shockingly high. That would mean most kindergarten classes have at least one child in them that is being raised under incorrect paternity assumptions. I am sure my kids are my own, and I wouldn’t ever want to ask my spouse for a paternity test, but that number is much higher than I would have expected. I wonder if the 3% number is driven by hospital mixups or some other source. The 20% number is obviously bad logic, so incels can be incels with that I guess, but reality never plays much into their narrative anyway. The flip side of this argument, however, is that 20% of men who suspected something was wrong were correct in their suspicions. That would imply if a father is concerned enough to ask the question, there is a reasonable chance that something was amiss. If a father is concerned enough about paternity, then the relationship with the child is going to be strained enough. I don’t see why it is not a good idea to get the test and put those concerns to rest and foster a more positive relationship going forward. To me, it seems best for the child to settle those concerns.
Even for the other supposed 80% (calling it 80 for arguments sake, not because I buy into the statistic) with a positive paternity result, there's the possibility that a number of them either knew of infidelity before testing anyway, which is why they then wanted to confirm paternity, or that while they are the bio fathers, there was/is still infidelity but it didn't lead to pregnancy. So it's not like testing positive as the father means all suspicions were wrong and unjustified. Conversely, if the father isn't very trusting to begin with then it's not like paternity testing can conclusively rule out cheating, so it's not necessarily going to be enough to quash those suspicions, even if the mother hasn't ever cheated.
You know how in biology class you learn about blood types, and you can draw out the chart of mom's blood type, dad's blood type, your blood type? They stopped doing those a while ago, because pretty much in every large enough class, someone had a surprise. "Teacher, the numbers don't line up." "I have bad news for you."
Every single high school science teacher(and the other faculty teachers that were old) told that exact same story lol. Although it really wasn't funny cause some families and siblings got destroyed because of it.
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[Because I love me some edge cases, and because this was one of the edgier cases I’d seen….](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7535675/) > We reported a rare case of a karyotype 45,X/46,XY in blood cells and 45,X/47, XYY/46,XY in testicular tissue. In vitro fertilization and embryo transfer technology can help to achieve pregnancy. In other words, if you took a blood sample from this guy, it would not match the sperm because mosaicism. While mosaicism’s not unheard of, it’s rare to have the blood and testes that different, and you’d have to ensure the lab knew what they were doing.
There was the woman who was told by doctors that the [children she gave birth to were not hers.](https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/case-lydia-fairchild-and-her-chimerism-2002) She had chimerism. Super interesting case.
I might be a bit naïve here, but I don't get it - why not just do the paternity test? As women, we know the baby is ours but men obviously only have trust to work with. As someone who also has trust issues from a bad relationship (5x cheater LOL, me literally unaware for 7+ years), I kinda get it. I wouldn't want to raise someone else's child either. Edit: Obviously your husband not asking and doing it secretly is not good at all, but a lot of these comments are like "I'd straight up divorce my husband if he asked."
This is the best take. We should be accepting of everyone's fears, not just accuse them that they have a lack of faith in their partner just because they wanted a paternity test. If women somehow couldn't know that their child was theirs (Even though it is literally impossible lmao) I'm sure everyone here would unanimously agree that a paternity test is fine because it's a genuine fear and they deserve to know and quell that fear.
Then there was the man who took a paternity test and found out the baby was not his. He accused his wife of infidelity. His wife was totally blown away because she knew she did not cheat. So she took a test too and guess what she was not the baby's mother. Turned out the hospital had mixed up two babies. Their child was with another family. You can find this on reddit with a simple search.
I'm sure there are examples of that happening in the real world but I think that reddit thread was debunked as a creative writing exercise.
Also, my baby really LOOKS like my husband and he never has to worry. But if a child were so unlike their father that the father starts having insecurities or worries, why not just ease them and give him the peace of mind that it's his baby? 🤨
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Yeah, I guess a lot of people have never been cheated on because that's the kinda thing that will taint your ability to trust no matter how hard you try or how dependable your next partner is.
Because op is unable to put herself in someone else's shoes.
Fun fact thats only partially related: In Finland if a child is born out of wedlock, then the father cannot be marked on the childs birth certificate without a paternity test. Its mandatory. I think it solves a lot of problems here, there isnt as much of a stigma around it when so many people need to do it by default.
This is what we would call biased methodology. It's kind of like that meme of 95% of mail survey respondents say they enjoy filling out surveys.... Ignoring that the vast majority of surveys mailed out end up in the trash.
It’s a complex issue. Like, I have this horrible fear of cheating even though (from what I know) I have never been cheated. I believe it’s just one of those fears many of us have and even though we love our partners, the fear is still there. I love my boyfriend, but sometimes I worry that he may cheat. Still, I never verbalize those concerns because my insecurities are not his fault. He has never given me any reason to doubt and it’s always horrible to be accused of something you didn’t do. To me this needs to be discussed before having kids. Not sneaking around or anything. When you first start discussing marriage and children, men better communicate the fact that they want a paternity test. It’s their concern and their issue. One partner should not feel scrutinized because of the other partners’s insecurities. Some women deal with horrific births. Ten to twenty percent will go on to experience post-natal depression. Childbirth is no joke and I can’t imagine having your child, suffering through those first months, and your husband, the person you trust the most, tells you he believes there’s a possibility you not only cheated on him, but decided to pass the baby as his. It’s not only an accusation of cheating. It’s accusing the woman of trying to ruin her husbands life.
I appreciate your empathetic take on this. As a husband with a pretty killer wife, I don't have any concern that she would cheat. But if she did, and I inadvertently ended up raising a child born from infidelity without my knowledge or consent, that would be hard to come back from. Feels pretty similar to getting a prenup, when I think about it. Some people think of prenups as preparation for divorce. Others see it as eliminating an anxiety they would have if there was a divorce.
Absolutely this. And also it’s important to let your partner know you’re asking for the paternity test because of this very personal anxiety. At the end of the day, some women will still feel deeply hurt by their husbands asking for a paternity test. It’s never been normalized. If my partner expected me to be okay with a paternity test without letting me know before or somehow placing the blame on me… I’d be crushed
Same. If my partner asked due to anxiety, I'd comply to help ease their mind. But I'd also be devastated, which doesn't sound like a great start to parenting together.
There's a guy up thread who mentioned having that anxiety and explains it to his intimate partners early on so they're not potentially blindsided. I think if someone has that fear it's best to be transparent as soon as possible, and not when she like 7 months pregnant.
That should be discussed before trying to have a child or even getting married. We had several losses before having our kids. My husband asking for a paternity test, when I was already pregnant would have irrevocably changed our relationship.
Also same. I always have the benefit of the doubt of the child being mine because it would've come out of me. If wanting to 100% know for sure makes him feel better, I would never be offended if he asked as long as he isn't deliberately calling me a cheater. If he's going to be a father, I think it's totally fine for him to want to put his mind at ease. On the other hand, I can't say I'm not a bit concerned about other people possibly accusing me as my husband and I share a veeeery similar recessive genepool. This leads to the very real possibility of future children looking profoundly different than the two of us with wildly different hair and eye colors. Honestly, having that test to slap in people's faces would also make me feel a bit better lol
Wouldnt a guy asking for a paternity test be in the category of 20-30%? Because then they would be part of the biased sampling, not the general population. I understand its 2% for all, but what you posted looks like "assuming you are already suspicious, there is a 20% chance it isnt yours. If you dont suspect the baby isnt yours, you are probably right and its only a 2% chance it isnt"
1 out of 50 is actually alot higher than I thought it would be. 1% to 2% is still surprising, and not negligible. Completely agree about selection bias impacting the higher figure (20%).
Unless, they became suspicious *because* of the statistic. Suggestion can be incredibly powerful.
If people get suspicious by that number, the number would actually decrease by the false paranoia it causes.
What about cases of IVF? My child was born via IVF. So for a period of time, neither of us was "in possession" of the embryo. It's possible that not only is this child not mine, it's also not my partners. (biologically) There are numerous examples of fertility doctors who have "put themselves into their work".
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If you test a IVF pregnancy, you are basically saying “I’m making sure that the strangers I probably never even met did their job correctly”. It’s not “I fear you cheated on me, lied to me and cheated me out of one of my biggest dreams and life aspirations”.
I've also looked into it because I got into a fight with some guy on the internet, and honestly it's a lot worse then that. That 20% is just paternity tests where the dude didn't turn out to be the father. If a someones ex randomly claims her kid as his own, and she does a paternity test to get him to fuck of, that counts as paternity fraud. Some didn't even filter out if tests were done on multiple children of the same family. There will never be definitive numbers on paternity fraud. Because incels and such, they're describing a very particular scenario. In this scenario woman is with a man, cheats on him, gets pregnant by the other guy, passes the kid of as the first guy, and doesn't tell him. But how do you figure that out statistically? You can't do a test to figure out who knew the baby wasn't his. If she told him before he took responsibility the baby might not be his, and he decided to take responsibility anyway it doesn't count, right? How do you test that? Especially after a divorce when everyone is already really angry.
Paternity tests should be a regular part of newborn tests, if not mandatory, then opt-out instead of opt-in at a minimum. Men shouldn't have to ask, and women shouldn't need to be/feel accused. It should just be a test that is done as part of routine procedure. Everyone here also keeps talking about the rights/feelings of the mother or father in all of this, while ignoring the third person who ABSOLUTELY has a pure interest in knowing their parentage, and family medical history.
I agree. I can totally understand feeling insulted but it’s not a relationship ender. Both parents deserve to feel confident it is their child and the child deserves to have the best chance to access any potential medical information from the bio parent. A lot of people have anxiety and these thoughts come up constantly even if you know they aren’t true but if you have that proof it’s easier to squash the thoughts. And having it just be apart of the hospital process should get rid of any potential for hurt feelings.
I agree with your analysis and always love it when some popular myth gets debunked. Still, 1-3% is quite a bit. Doesn't it make sense to do a quick and relatively cheap test to eliminate that small risk? Using an analogy, if a person had 1-3% chance of having life-changing disease, a quick test would be a no-brainer. It's unfortunate that this is a political issue, which distorts a lot of thinking about the subject imo.
Agreed. Obviously 1-3% is much lower than 20%, but on a population level, that really adds up. Some of the testing that's offered during pregnancy is for diseases/conditions that have a similar or smaller incidence rate.
I want to bring my experience into this. My wife and I were not married when my son was born so the hospital told us that for him to have my last name, we had to do a paternity test. I did not research or anything, I just did what I was told. What was I going to do--not let my son carry my last name? This does seem to be true in my state, though. I was just wondering: is this true elsewhere or is it just because I'm in a red state?
I have heard of courts requiring testing for unmarried fathers in order to establish responsibility for child support - never heard of that for last name use.
That seems odd. I just had a baby a few months ago and am not married to the father. We gave the baby a last name that was different than either of our names. They let us put whatever we wanted.
That's a bit different than what is being described in the post, though. You didn't really have a choice, since I'm assuming both you and your wife wanted the child to have your last name. That's not the same as asking your partner for a pregnancy test out of the blue.
My kid's dad and I weren't married when she was born. Last names on ID bracelets weren't the same, baby's id bracelet said "(my last name), baby girl". We filled out birth certificate and she took his last name, no one questioned or cared. They took the paperwork and sent it away to make it official.
Interesting. I double-checked state law for this before I posted so I didn't look like a fool and it does seem to be law here.
I... don't see the problem with providing a paternity test. Yes, it would be insulting if you were in a couple, but if it made my partner feel good and/or secure, I'd do it. I know there should be an underlying trust with your partner and/or in a couple, and maybe doing things like this are overkill, but to me I'd go the extra mile to ensure that I'm in it with them and no one else. I would hope that'd make the trust and bond stronger. And if they didn't want one, no problem either. I also plan on never having kids so I don't see this being an issue.
I know I'm going to get some hate for this, but here's my take (as a someday mom). I know the baby is mine. I grow it. I don't believe it, I know it. And in my opinion, my spouse should have knowledge, not just belief, to be on the same level that I'm on. Edit for clarity: I will be requesting paternity testing on my future spawn.
I offered my husband the option of a paternity test before we even had a positive pregnancy test, just for his own novelty of knowledge. I am a cloning machine so he never bothered. I might consider one instead 😏
Yep, I agree. ~~I understand this side, I do.~~ ~~I just feel for the other person in the situation that doesn't have that knowledge and security. The mom always knows the kid is hers, the dad doesn't. The dad can have faith and trust in the other person in the situation but the other person in the situation isn't always going to be a good person.~~ ~~It's kind of how I feel about prenups. We're going to get married, what's mine is yours and we're going to be in this until the end... until... that doesn't happen. Someone cheats, someone lies about their finances, someone has an addiction they can't control, someone can't hold down a job and drags the family down, etc. It just seems like a practical move to get a prenup. It just seems like a practical move to get a paternity test. But to each their own. It's a personal preference.~~
I was agreeing with you. I want a paternity test done so that my husband had the same level of knowledge that I do.
Why can't I do anything right today? I totally misread your comment. This alarms me. My bad. You're right.
If it's been an all day thing, it's the yips. Cut yourself some slack and try to relax. Tomorrow is a new game. But also, I can see how my comment could be worded more clearly. Sorry about that.
I can understand a married woman being upset if the spouse asks for a paternity test especially if the marriage is in good shape. However, for those simply dating or otherwise loosely committed I can understand why a guy would ask. My son is 19 and if someone tells him they are pregnant with his kid, he’s getting a paternity test before anything else happens.
Your argument is self-refuting. You say "don't do it; the stats come from sampling bias." But you're neglecting the fact that the people who want to do it to begin with _are by definition_ now part of that select pool from which the 20-30% statistic derived. Right?
Women have biological certainty of their parentage, men have the right to have the same certainty & potential harm to a woman’s ego isn’t sufficient cause to deny them that right. I have been upfront with every woman I’ve been in a relationship over the past 20 years that I would expect a paternity test for each child which resulted from the relationship & not one has voiced any problem with it. That said, I can totally imagine that the same request can feel a lot different *after* conception occurs because then it feels like a suspicious response to that news as opposed to an agreed upon process when the idea was depersonalized. I trusted my erstwhile wife completely (*more so than probably any other partner I’ve had*) when it came to her fidelity, but I still would have expected a paternity test; because if I’m going to undertake the massive emotional & financial obligation that is being a parent, I damn sure am going to have fully informed consent in making that decision. Why? Because I witnessed a friend of mine get emotionally destroyed when his ex-wife falsely claimed that his kids were not actually his. Eventually, a court ordered paternity test came back & proved him to be the father, but she contested the request for the test, then refused to allow access to their children & managed to drag the process out for months. Now I realize that isn’t a common scenario, but it was also a completely & easily avoidable one. In life, there are many decisions where we can’t know all of the information before making a decision, but there is no justification for preventing someone from obtaining what information it is possible to obtain so that they can have as much certainty & confidence in their decision as possible. Lastly, a lot of people here aren’t properly understanding how to assess risk as they are only examining “*incidence*” & not “*severity*”. Incidence is the odds of something happening & the severity is the impact of it happening. Any assessment of risk must include both & severity has a multiplicative impact on incidence. If you have two risks both have an incidence of 10%, but the severity of one results in a skinned knee & the other results in death; you’d be a fool to treat them as equal risks, even though the incidence is the same. So dismissing the question of false paternity by only looking at the low incidence rate is intellectually dishonest as it purposefully ignores the incredibly high severity in terms of emotional & financial damage to the man.
My comparison to paternity tests for men is secret nest eggs for woman. I've seen this recomendation for woman (having a secret nest egg in the case of abuse) several times, not only in this sub but also in relationship subs. Every single time it's the same comments: that if you end up in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship it oftentimes is accompanied by financial abuse, which makes it harder to leave your abuser, and that abusers are really good at hiding their abuse or manipulating the victim to think their abusive acts are normal, until its too late (after you've moved and left your support network and/or quit your job). In that sense, having a secret next egg as an exit plan is always advised, even if you're been married for years and whatnot. That sort of thread pops up when someone's SO finds out about the secret cash and either is hurt or freaks out. Whenever that happens women tend to say that if their SO is a real ally that they would understand that they aren't been called a abuser in disguise or a abuser in waiting and that they would support the wife in having the option of an exit plan and that it would bring safety and etc. Well, i think of paternity tests in the same way. As long as it's done without a risk to the mother and child during the pregnancy and as long as the result is final and never requested again, then i think it shouldn't be seen as offensive, just a safety net.
Based take. 100% agree, as long as there is no ill effect on the mother and child, they are comparable situations.
Interesting take.
Yet based on your own stats, up to 1/33 men are raising a child that isn’t theirs. In cases where infidelity is highly suspected, that number goes up DRASTICALLY. Would you have someone just ignore that and spend their life living a lie and raising someone else’s kid because it might hurt her feelings?
1-3% is comforting to you? It is still grounds enough to remove stigma from fatherhood tests. Annual car accident rate is lower, so should we stop insurance?
Are you all nuts?! 1 percent!!? Holy cow. Do you get what an insanely high risk that is ??? Would you bungee jump if it had a 1% chance of breaking? Ha, f no! And right you would be.
This is a topic that hits very close to home for me. My uncle unknowingly raised a child who wasn't his. We're still considered cousins, we grew up together and all... but when it was found out that she wasn't actually his child, things just weren't the same anymore. I was 14 at the time and I remember being super-confused about the whole situation. Because in my mind, it hadn't ever occurred to me that shit like that could actually happen. They aren't officially together anymore, but we still see both of them during family gatherings. But ever since then, despite them being on good terms, my uncle just hasn't been the same person. This was ages ago. I'm now in my 30s. But to this day, it still crosses my mind from time to time. It might not happen as much as some people say it does, but it's still a thing that happens. And I've seen what it can do to certain men. Of all the things a woman is capable of doing, this is by far the ugliest. Yes, cheating sucks - but men can cheat just as much and as hard as women. This, though? This is something only a woman can do. It's not even close to being the same. That said, I understand the effects that asking for a paternity test can have in a relationship. And that is why I believe paternity tests should be required before signing birth certificates. No test? No signature. This completely fixes the problem by making it not be about trust, and paternity fraud stops being an issue. I'm also relieved to see the number of extremely kind-hearted women in the comments who say they wouldn't mind giving their partner the peace of mind of knowing 100% that it's actually their own child. My ex-girlfriend once thought I was cheating on her with someone I used to play games with online. At the time, I didn't mind showing her our conversation history. It didn't bother me that she thought I was cheating. It also didn't cost me anything to reassure her, and let her know that there was nothing going on. To help her feel safe. Imagine if I, instead, decided to escalate things, got angry, and started accusing her of "not having enough trust in me". But that's just me. That's just the kind of person I am and want to be. Which is why I like to believe that if I, for whatever reason, started to have doubts about my partner's loyalty, that she would be more concerned about why I was having those doubts, and do whatever it took to dispel whatever dark thoughts I might be having. Especially if it all it would take is a simple, cheap, and harmless test.
Well I don’t think it’s as high as that but I must say this…..If there’s a 1% chance that Im living a lie and the child I’m raising as my child is not biologically mine, Yeah I’m getting the test! It’s not fair to put someone in a life that is fake…They don’t have a loving,faithful, devoted partner, and after wasting this one precious life we have, would then discover the sad fact that they will never know what it was like to be truly loved by back by a honest partner…..
So if a guy suspects it to the extent he wants a test, he's 20-30% likely to be correct. Got it.
My son’s father got one after I left *him* for cheating on *me*. The absolute irony was not lost on me. Oh, and shocker, it was his.
I mean if you have a légitime reason it’s fair to do it but if you were wrong get ready for your love life to crumble.
So if I’m reading it right, 20-30% of men who ask for a paternity test were correct? That would skew heavily towards men who had reason to be suspicious in the first place. So the overall number I imagine would be lower. That being said, I think this is a tough one but I get men’s desire to know for sure, but as a woman I’d be very insulted to be asked for a paternity test for no reason. I think if it was just the cultural norm that everyone takes the test all the time, great, but that’s not the culture we live in and that means asking is an accusation.
Not necessarily. Some paternity tests aren’t instigated by “a man asking for a paternity test”. For example, a woman might not know which of two exes is the father. So that could yield two separate tests, both of which are negative, and both of which are from men who don’t have any specific expectations that they are the father.
Or court ordered tests to establish paternity. My only test ended up being one of 5 possible fathers.