Rampant Misattributed Paternity

[samvara]

Who was I talking to about this recently? 

"… we blood-tested some patients in a town in south-east England, and found that 30% of the husbands could not have been the fathers of their children…"

Comments

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

I have vague recollections of this?

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

There was something the paper recently that claimed about 30% of paternity tests done in NSW showed the man was not actually the biological father.　Of course the paper slapped the headline `1 in 3 men not real dads`, implying that 1 in 3 of fathers were not the biological fathers of the children they thought they had sired.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Yay! That sounds like the thing we were talking about! I think they must have meant 1 in 3 men who requested paternity tests, which is much smaller than all men who are fathers.

[(Anonymous)]

Seems like typically sensationsal misreporting to me.

[ironed_orchid]

Urk, that was me being all anonymous, just like some of those biological fathers... or something.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Yeah that was my thought, I only heard about it though - didn't see the article.

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

bloody poms :-)

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Aww :p

[fred-mouse.livejournal.com]

pretty sure I was part of the conversation, although I don't think that I used such a high term - I was actually of the belief that there *was* a study done in the last ten years that found 10% misattributed paternity, but I can't go looking at present...

Another aspect is whether or not this misattribution is done with the knowledge of the father...