Paternity tests [was: WSJ: NSA Computer Upgrade]

[Trei, Peter]

> John Young[SMTP:jya at pipeline.com]
> 
> Men usually got a hangup about paternity, and
> many don't want to know the truth, so the 28% is
> surely way low, in particular to protect the kids and
> the wives and to keep the men in harness. Them's 
> the facts of biology and culture and healthy
> workplace economies.
> 
	[...]

> Never, ever have your blood tested, nor your brain.
> Keep your head up where the sun don't go. Read
> the papers, call what you see lies, distortions of
> your motherless bastardy.
> 
The Bard dealt with this issue, as he did so
many others:

 Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly: I 
thinke this is your daughter.
  Leonato. Her mother hath many times told me so.
  Bened. Were you in doubt that you askt her?
  Leonato. Signior Benedicke, no, for then were you a
childe.
  Pedro. You haue it full Benedicke, we may ghesse by
this, what you are, being a man, truely the Lady fathers
her selfe: be happie Lady, for you are like an honorable
father.
  Ben. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not 
haue his head on her shoulders for al Messina, as like him
as she is.

- Much Ado About Nothing, Actus primus, Scena prima

... and he here also points out why many men don't 
bother with testing - family resemblence is convincing
enough. I have two daughters. One is the image of my 
sister as a child, and the other looks so much my 
mother did at that age that people mistake childhood 
photos of one for the other.

In the absence of any particular reason for doubt, blood
tests would be a waste of time and money.

Peter Trei