Ray Dillinger[SMTP:bear@sonic.net]

On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Ray Dillinger wrote:

...

I've heard similar figures from the CDC - when they discover genetic disease, they often do tests to find out which parent it was inherited through - and about the same fraction of the time, they find that kids are no relation to their fathers.

Here's another tidbit ... this time on a page that deals with genetic testing. Their estimates for general population seem to be in the 10% range.

at http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctf706.htm: ... In about a third of the welfare cases and 10% of other cases, lab directors say that the father named by the mother turns out not to be the biological parent....

Bear

This is still a mis-reading. The population they are refering to is self-selected - men who, for one reason or another, decide to spend the $450 - $600 it costs to do the tests. For most people, that's not an insignificant outlay, and will not be taken unless there is some other reason for suspicion. When the price gets down to the <$100 range, I hope that it becomes a standard part of the childbirth package. I heard somewhere that ~10% of firstborns are cuckoos (can't give a cite), but the number is lower for later children. Peter Trei