Consumer DNA tests revealing misattributed parentage | Hacker News Reader

Consumer DNA tests revealing misattributed parentage

theatlantic.com

87 pointsprostoalex137 comments

There was an interesting thread on reddit where people were sharing their experiences with DNA tests and their parentage/ancestry. I was surprised with sheer number of them being listed/shared there. I never considered DNA tests will have such a weird side effects. It's a fascinating to see how much science or scientific tests in future can lead to weird results (not that I'm condoning cheating or anything) -

Thread for the interested - https://np.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/7mu9zn/there...

EDIT: And every now and then you see these threads - https://np.reddit.com/r/23andme/comments/8iq8hu/my_parents_a...

More meta questions - will DNA testing result in fidelity of relationships or some sort of regulation where you are not allowed to tell these uncomfortable truths?

Regardless, I'm fascinated by DNA and how much it can reveal about ourselves. Not to mention emerging trends like CRISPR.

Maybe part of the issue is an over-emphasis on "fidelity". People have always played around - or to be frank, many women have been assaulted and had to keep it quiet - maybe the best outcome would be more open communication and understanding between couples rather than even more prescriptive social norms about how relationships should work.

It's not so much about fidelity as honesty.

In any case, getting raped isn't a breach of fidelity.

Never said that.

Edit: But I gotta say that I'd expect my wife to share if she'd been raped. And especially if she had gotten pregnant, and had chosen to have the child. Without that level of honesty in a marriage, there arguably isn't actually a marriage. That may seem harsh, I know. But hey, I got it from Landmark. For what it's worth, while responsibility and honesty are considered key values, there is no blame.

No. If one was raped it should be reported and the perpetrator should be prosecuted. You cannot let these people go unpunished and potentially rape others.

That is a vastly simplistic view of rape and sexual assault and comes very close to victim blaming. In many societies there is a stigma attached to sexual assault victims, even in western society many victims get blamed: "why was she wearing that dress?", "why was she in the club on her own if she was in a relationship?", "why did she walk through the park at night on her own?", "maybe she went home with him and just regretted it the next day".

As terrible as it is, for some people the best way to handle their trauma is to never speak of it and pretend it never happened. Going to the police can cause all sorts of problems, as you have to relive the trauma as you fill out your victim statement, as you go to court, as everyone around you feels pity, like you're damaged goods.

I doubt that "for some people the best way to handle their trauma is to never speak of it and pretend it never happened" is actually true. I would like to see some study that proves that.

Otherwise you just empower the rapists for no justifiable reason.

And even if there is some personal net benefit for not telling anyone. Is it more important than saving others from potentially the same harm?

Has it occurred to you that maybe one of the root causes of so-called ”rape culture” is that would-be rapists do indeed feel thusly empowered?

But is there a "rape culture"? I mean there are criminals that commit rape. But what are the reasons to call it a culture. As far as I know, the rape, at least in the western world, is perceived as a terrible thing and is punished by law.

I’m not American. I just hear the term bandied about a lot (including by my equally-foreign, US-college educated fiancée, who has regaled me with several horror stories relating to young women on her campus).

No, certainly not. The threat of serious legal reprisal deters criminals of all sorts, including rapists.

Most rape trials fail to secure a conviction though, and that's when it's actually reported, majority of cases are not.

>The threat of serious legal reprisal deters criminals of all sorts

And yet we have plenty of crime..

> even in western society many victims get blamed:

No they don't. Which western society? In western society ( US for example ), we presume the alleged victim is telling the truth and the accused is guilty. In western society, we release the name of the accused and protect identity of the alleged victim. Even when the courts find out that the accuser lied, her name is withheld and protected.

Don't know which "western society" you are from, but in the US, it's usually the accused, not the alleged victim, that suffer, whether the rape happened or not.

> "why was she wearing that dress?", "why was she in the club on her own if she was in a relationship?", "why did she walk through the park at night on her own?"

What? This is simply a lie. You know it.

> "maybe she went home with him and just regretted it the next day".

Because we have cases of this happening. Remember the mattress girl from columbia? We have a few high profile cases of women consensually having sex with guys and then regretting it later and then falsely accusing the men of rape.

I'm tired of the false narrative of rape and rape society of the west. Does rape happen in the west. Sure. Are rape cases prosecuted. Yes. Are rape victims ( and even false accusers ) protected. Yes. But stop lying about how we shame or attack rape victims. Maybe in the 1800s, but not today.

> What? This is simply a lie. You know it.

I have personally heard people say things like this, particularly older women, some of them in my own family. This sort of attitude was even pretty commonly stated in the media only a few decades ago. Please retract that accusation of lying and apologise immediately.

> This sort of attitude was even pretty commonly stated in the media only a few decades ago.

So not today? A few decades ago? We are talking about western society today, not in the past.

> Please retract that accusation of lying and apologise immediately.

Why would I retract a correct statement and apologise for being honest and truthful? Why are you asking me to apologize when your response actually backed up my assertion?

What is the matter with you? I said in the media, but first gave current personal testimony.

Attitudes like that are much less tolerated in public discourse nowadays, but people very much do hold such oppinions and will express them in private. Most of the people saying this in public media a few decades ago are still alive and still hold these views, but just have less of a platform. I will say again - I have heard people say things like that myself.

Your accusation of lying was wholly uncalled for and manifestly untrue. The fact that you’re doubling Down on it is frankly pretty shocking.

>> "why was she wearing that dress?", "why was she in the club on her own if she was in a relationship?", "why did she walk through the park at night on her own?"

>What? This is simply a lie. You know it.

This statement is highly uncharitable to your interlocutor above and frankly ignorant of the history of sexual assault prosecutions in the US. There has been a longstanding and documented strategy of defense attorneys trying to paint the alleged victim unsympathetically to try to elicit a just world theory-based response: "she was engaged in dangerous behaviour - that couldn't happen to someone like me".

It is important to distinguish the high-profile Title 9/social media kangaroo courts with the workings of the actual US justice system.

> This statement is highly uncharitable to your interlocutor above and frankly ignorant of the history of sexual assault prosecutions in the US.

Once again, we are talking about western society today, not in history. I already acknowledged in my comment that things were different in the past.

> "she was engaged in dangerous behaviour - that couldn't happen to someone like me".

Once again, a foreigner pushing "rape culture" rhetoric about the US and sowing divisions. Just curious, if you aren't american, why are you posting about it as if you were american?

> It is important to distinguish the high-profile Title 9/social media kangaroo courts with the workings of the actual US justice system.

I wasn't just talking about title IX or social media. I was talking about media, the courts and society in general. When a woman accuses a man of rape, she is believed and the man is scorned - even before trial. Stop trying to paint the US today as it was in the past or the congo.

What makes you think marchenko is not a US citizen?

Regardless, my original comment said "Western Culture", not "American Culture". Here in Australia I have definitely seen comments and heard people victim blame rape victims for their behavior. Don't try and say that it's only an Australian thing, for sure it happens in the USA too.

Why would you accuse me of lying?

> What makes you think marchenko is not a US citizen?

The dead giveaway is "behaviour".

> Regardless, my original comment said "Western Culture", not "American Culture".

Your original comment referenced "western society". I referenced america because I'm american.

> Here in Australia I have definitely seen comments and heard people victim blame rape victims for their behavior, for sure it happens in the USA too.

Really? You've heard it? By whom? The media? Government officials? Judges? People in power? By society at large? Give me a break.

> Why would you accuse me of lying?

Because you lied. You implied that western society blames women. I already responded to you that was not the case. I responded directly to your comment that western society at large believes the accuser de facto and assumes the guilt of the accused. We as a society, in the US and I'm sure australia too, initially take the alleged victim's side. And as I said, even when the alleged victim turns out to be a liar, we ( as a society ) protect her identity.

But boy, there sure are a lot of foreign elements here pushing the divisive "US/West" is pro-rape and anti-women rhetoric. A couple of accounts responded with similar "personal anecdotes". I've heard people say "kill all men" or "women belong in the home". Doesn't mean that society at large supports fringe rhetoric.

Lets put it simply. When a woman says a man raped her. If you think our ( societal ) initial reaction to that is "what were you wearing" rather than being disgusted at the man, then you are lying.

> "why was she wearing that dress?", "why was she in the club on her own if she was in a relationship?", "why did she walk through the park at night on her own?"

To call these things "victim blaming" is disingenuous, I think, because it makes it sound like someone is saying that you are guilty of rape (of yourself) if you do those things. Instead, we need to separate between two acts: rape, and subjecting yourself to danger (danger of rape, in this instance). The latter is not a crime and does not make you an accomplice of the rape, and it does not take any guilt of the rapist, but it might still be stupid and blameworthy on its own, as a separate act, even if it ends well and no rape occurs. I mean, my loved ones surely would be upset with me if I subjected myself to excessive danger, or just neglected to lock my door when I left home.

The danger in question does not even have to be related to a crime. It could be recklessly climbing a mountain or a scaffold. In that case, it certainly not about taking responsibility of a wrong from a criminal and putting it on the victim – because there is no such wrong – but blame might still be reasonable.

> "maybe she went home with him and just regretted it the next day"

This falls in neither of the above two categories. It is just a hypothesis that has to be taken into account like any other.

You word this as if married women being inseminated by other men isn't in the vast majority of cases an unintended consequence of completely intentional behavior. Your "being frank" is framing an incredibly rare situation as primary.

> People have always played around

Most people don't "play around". We have statistic proof about it.

> or to be frank, many women have been assaulted and had to keep it quiet

I'm pretty sure most of the 23andme customers are in the US and not in the congo. By "many" women, you mean almost no women right?

> maybe the best outcome would be more open communication and understanding between couples rather than even more prescriptive social norms about how relationships should work.

Opening communication and understanding are the prescriptive social norm. You make it seem like cheating and rape is the norm. Also, most people agree on how relationships should work. That's how we got "prescriptive social norms".

I am not sure over 300,000 women a year in the US is 'almost no'. That sure looks like many to me. With an estimate of somewhere in the 7-12,000 a year having children as a result. And something like 1 in 6 having been raped in their life time. Yes those are estimates, but still a significant number.

Edit Source: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

> I am not sure over 300,000 women a year in the US is 'almost no'.

We were talking about women getting raped, impregnated and having children unbeknownst to the father. That was the "almost no" I was talking about.

> With an estimate of somewhere in the 7-12,000 a year having children as a result.

An "estimate". Fine. There are about 4 million births in the US every year.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-...

So I'm gonna stick to "almost no" here.

> And something like 1 in 6 having been raped in their life time. Yes those are estimates, but still a significant number.

More estimates? By whom? Let me guess, an organization dedicated to inflating numbers?

> Edit Source: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

Of course. I no more trust "estimates" from rainn than I do climate change "estimates" from exxon.

As I said, we were talking about women getting raped, impregnated and having children unbeknownst to the father. You turned that discussion into a stealth argument about "rape culture".

OP asserted that "many" spouses of "cuckolded" fathers were a result of rape. It was a very specific assertion. I responded to that, not anything about rapes in general.

Why is every response on this thread pushing the "rape narrative" here? I think that 1 rape is too many, but that wasn't what we are talking about? Why inject politics into this?

Also in /r/23andme, lots of people finding out they have no Cherokee/Native American heritage after all.

Wait, high cheek bones doesn't automatically mean you have Cherokee heritage?

My mother used to say that she was part, despite us being able to trace our entire tree back to Western Europe.

I always figured it was a popular fad to claim in the 70's.

Do these people happen to be coming from Massachusetts?

I'd prefer some sort of regulation where you are required to tell these uncomfortable truths.

> I'm fascinated by DNA and how much it can reveal about ourselves. Not to mention emerging trends like CRISPR.

Heh, DNA tests to reveal what we are, and CRISPR to put an end to it.

Regarding the misattributed paternity numbers/rates:

Obviously interviewing people isn't going to reveal the correct numbers: If a mother isn't going to tell her child, or doesn't know [switched in the maternity ward, chimera, multiple partners] chances are they aren't going to tell some random researcher either.

However, there was some interesting research at a hospital in the UK (maybe Bristol ?) which tested the men which were present at the birth of the child against the child, and the numbers are rather high - something above 1 in 20. And this is for the men that were present.

Something which should be more common knowledge.

There is every reason to believe that this is strongly influenced by culture.

Perhaps the Swedish have a higher incidence, and the Saudis lower. One should not look at a single study in a single place at a single time, that depends almost entirely on human behaviour, and extrapolate to humans as a whole.

The actual rate of non-paternity in western societies is closer to 3%. The 10-20% figures that appear regularly on the internet are largely derived from rates of non-paternity in cases were paternity was questioned (i.e. pre-existing suspicions of infidelity). The higher ranges quoted (30% is the highest I have seen) are generally from small study populations with extended periods of partner absence, like central American itinerant laborers or African truck drivers.

I had never heard of chimeraism in humans. Naturally was curious and looked it up. Found this article to be helpful for anyone else interested: http://www.vibrantgene.com/giving-birth-to-your-siblings-bab...

A little OT and most here probably already know, but genetic genealogy(GEDmatch basically) is starting to be used to solve rape and murder cases.

Here's a recent murder case solved a couple weeks ago they announced just on friday that they used genetic genealogy: http://providencejournal.com/news/20180727/how-dna-and-tatto...

And here's the first instance that I know of of a non-fatal rape case where the technology was used.

https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2018/07/28/79-year-ol...

It's a good way to work around privacy issues like offenders not wanting/bothering to have their DNA registered.

That's one of the reasons I believe people tend to be a little too protective of their genetic information. For one thing we spread it around, constantly. For another, all our relatives have some or most of that information too.

It's not really collection that's the big issue... the big issue is that the federal DNA database only stores a very small portion of the DNA so familial searches on it are only accurate up to 1st cousins. And there are privacy and disparate impact on minorities(everyone caught thus far with GEDMatch has been white IIRC) complaints with using the federal database for familial searches. With GED Match you can go much deeper(at least to 3rd cousins but IIRC potentially up to 5th) in the family tree than the federal DNA database would allow.

There are about 1 million law enforcement personnel in the US which is about how many samples are in the GEDMatch database... a pretty powerful database could be created just from the samples from law enforcement personnel.

Some countries, like for example France, make DNA tests pretty much illegal to prevent discovering painful truths like this.

The French government claims that fatherhood is determined by society, and not biology. That is a very unscientific law.

How is it unscientific?

Maybe anti-scientific would be a better term. The law explicitly prevents people from finding out information about themselves that is encoded into every cell of their being.

Such laws just can't be made to work.

Laws can't fight reality.

That's pretty clearly false. See: China, North Korea.

Any artifical norm can try to fight reality for some time, but reality eventually ends up winning.

You can't make something work by going against reality. You can pretend it will work by itself - for a while.

This is usually called "delusion" and it takes a lot of resources to maintain it.

Many artificial norms have stuck around for millennia in the face of reality. Many don't want to wait around that long.

Sure, but France is very close to other countries where DNA testing is legal. No?

My point is that the idea that you can't deny reality is false. Governments do it all the time, very successfully, for long periods of time. If the argument is "Western, liberal democracies cannot deny reality for an extended period of time", you're probably closer to making a correct statement, but still false. See: Gulf of Tonkin, Lusitania. You might say "But we know the truth of those incidents!", but of course, I can only cite examples for which we now know the truth. The ones for which we do not are, by definition, uncitable.

OK, sure. But France can't prevent DNA testing.

And I wonder, what is it such an issue in France? I wonder if rates of misattributed paternity are higher there.

I'm not sure. Seems like a cultural quirk. The French are somewhat infamously adulterous. So much so that Francois Hollande had a mistress that was super well known and didn't negatively impact him at all.

So ya, maybe misattributed paternity is pretty common there.

How is it not?

It doesn't have to be scientific.

It's not unscientific to define fatherhood in a way that doesn't involve genetic or copulative parentage.

> The French government claims that fatherhood is determined by society

It is. A child does not need to be genetically related to their parents. Adoption is a common practice.

Although with genetic diseases and child support, genealogy/paternity still matters.

Adoption is one thing. Paternity fraud is another. Many men do not want to raise children that are not biologically theirs. The current system in France (and in many US states) forces men to raise or pay child support for children that are not biologically theirs. In some cases this even prevents men from being able to have or raise properly children of their own.

Legal fatherhood is determined by law. Biological fatherhood is determined by science/genetics. Also, adoption isn't a common practice. Adoptions happen, but they are rare.

Ideally, legal and biological fatherhood should be one and the same. That way you can find your genetic history for medical purposes and legal family tree for historical purposes. But tragically, in a few cases, legal and biological fathers are not the same.

> Ideally [...] But tragically,

This is of course a value judgement. I'm sure many adoptees would disagree with your assessment that their situation is tragic.

> This is of course a value judgement.

It's a biological and common sense judgment.

> I'm sure many adoptees would disagree with your assessment that their situation is tragic.

Ideally ( all things being equal ), adoptees would want to be with their "ideal" biological parents. Of course if the biological parents are dead, abusive or too poor to provide for them ( tragic ), then adoption is better than nothing. But I can't think of any child who wouldn't want to be with their biological parents all things being equal.

Appealing to common sense doesn't make your argument more appealing.

I mean, I could similarly assume the ideal to be mass incubation in artificial wombs, followed by randomly selected adoption.

What makes it unscientific? Because it makes it difficult to access information?

There's a lot of information access to which is, by law, forbidden, or restricted.

> That is a very unscientific law.

And yours is an extraordinarily myopic view. It should be obvious that fatherhood is more about kinship bond, duty, and obligation than it is about genetics.

How do you feel paying child support for somebody's else kid ?

It's a claim that the legal relationship between father and children will not rely on DNA relationship, but on the father acknowledging the child as his own.

I think it a grave offense to the dignity of men and women to deprive them if vital truths like this. The French really have fallen

I don't think that the French have fallen at all, but rather that attitude has been part of French culture for a long time.

As an example, it has been illegal since Napoleonic times for the French government to collect data on ancestry or ethnicity.

> that attitude has been part of French culture for a long time

Why does it need to be a law then?

Culture shows itself in many aspects, including the law.

That's terribly oppressive. Honestly no one should be forced to directly support other person child. It must be a voluntary process to be just. The biological parents should be financially responsible by default. It seems obvious to me.

They ship to France: https://eu.customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/204712...

Best line of the fine article, in relation to the discovery by DNA testing of secret infidelity and rape:

> It’s getting harder and harder to keep secrets in our society

That motif seems to be permeating deeper and deeper into every aspect of modern life.

I went to law school with a former ER doctor. When a teenager (<16) would show up in labor, he said there was a 30% chance her child's father was her father too. The doctors duty was to the patient(s) and breaking up the family by reporting was not in her best interests. The prevalence of DNA tests is going to make such coverups impossible.

It would be best if we could decouple documentation from prosecution. The fact that it isn’t is how you end up with situations like that where people can’t talk about rape.

Careful, that's a breath away from decriminalizing pedophilia. The daughter is still a child, the father a sex offender who in any other circumstance would be crucified. The internet doesn't react well to such ideas.

Im all for allowing doctors some discretion in testing, but non-prosecution cannot be public policy.

You said there was a ~30% chance a teenager in labor had been abused by her father. It can be inferred that in ~70% of cases the teenager had not been abused by her father.

Should people prosecute the father of every pregnant teenager despite the 70% chance of him being innocent?

No, this is about testing that might detect those 30%. A doctor, not wanting to discover something that he might have to report, will avoid certain tests or questions. Blanket testing for things like genetics would remove that wiggle room, discovering all the family secrets.

Illegal family secrets.

How could he know that? Was he DNA testing every infant? Did the teen mother disclose this information? Did the [grand-]father?

Just do a search on google about it. Tons of studies and collected statistics point to that percentage.

If you include other older men who she calls 'dad' but are not her biological father (ie her mother's current husband) or uncles the percentage jumps to over 50%.

My friend said the biggest red flag was when the father brings the pregnant girl to hospital, or even just to the obgyn, without her mother. Such situations are so unusual that they draw the attention of any cops that hear about it.

I dated a girl in the nineties that worked at a maternity ward in a very popular hospital. She said that just comparing blood types five to ten percent of the babies did not belong to the mother’s couple. And of course doctors and nurses never said a word.

Another reason to not want kids.

Or rather another reason to marry a woman of strong character.

Kids have nothing to do with the honesty of your partner.

I'm pretty sure qubex means he does not want to raise someone else's kid, let alone his own.

Pretty much, or rather: I’d rather not be invested in the future beyond my death. My partner and I have sometimes discussed adoption (despite being able to conceive) and maybe we’ll go that route if and when stuff settles down enough for uncertainty to reach manageable levels.

You mean they mixed up the babies and gave them to the wrong parents?

It’s almost impossible to mix up babies in a maternity ward nowadays with all tracking stuff they have. No, I mean the mother cheating her couple.

Your use of the word "couple" is confusing to people who speak English as a second language.

It's confusing for me and i speak English as first language.

English is my second language and I did not want to sound rude. I meant 'the guy that is supposed to be the biological father and he is not but he doesn't know'. In Spanish, we have a very rude word for these men: 'Los cornudos'. I love the conciseness in languages but I don't like to sound rude in HN. Sorry! ;-)

"partner" would be the right word for where you have used "couple" here.

Yes, you are right. Thank you!

Just for some balance, let me say that, as a native speaker, I got the point, even though the usage is not quite conventional. Logronoide, if I could write a second language as well as you write English, I would be very pleased with myself.

"Los cornudos" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckold

English is a very conciseness language too! ;-)

My highschool used to do blood typing as a science experiment in bio. Part of the homework was to find out what blood type your parents were. One girl went home (before I was there, the teacher shared the story during the genetics unit), asked her parents their blood types, and "Dad, that's not possible. You can't be that blood type."

One lawsuit from mom later, and the school doesn't do that lab any more.

I found an older half sister via one of these tests. The demotion from oldest to second oldest has been a bitter pill, but having a new older sister is pretty neat!

I found my father through one, sadly he never had any other children. It would have been fun to instantly gain some new siblings. Because I first met him well into my adulthood it was interesting to learn his likes and dislikes since there's no question he didn't directly influence anything I did or didn't do.

We're both avid readers, we both like to live clutter-free lifestyles, we both like to travel. I learned to fly as a hobby and seriously considered it as a career, he was a pilot in the armed services and then professionally until he retired. We both like to go fast: I drove a late 60's Mustang in college, he had a Porsche speedster. Really the only thing we're opposed on is politics as he says "he's slightly to the right of Genghis Khan."

Talking with my new sister certainly has changed my opinions on nature versus nurture and freewill.

But you’re still the oldest male! And what a great older sister you gained. :)

My older sister, folks :)

... “This generation right now and maybe the next 15 years or so, there’s going to be a lot of shocking results coming out. I’d say in 20 years’ time it’s going to dissipate,” she predicted. By then, our expectations of privacy will have caught up with the new reality created by the rise of consumer DNA tests.

This reminds me of a discussion in which people were speculating about things that would not exist in the future.

There were many candidates: cancer; hunger; racism; and so on.

By far the most insightful comment came from the person who said "privacy." I don't think most people are ready for that future; it's almost unimaginable.

The youtube/fb/ig/snapchat generations might not even expect it

One can not have freedom with out privacy. As we destroy the concept of privacy we also destroy the concept of freedom.

It will be interesting how civilization handles it. We are starting to see some signs of push back, but unfortunely people are turning to governments and authoritarianism as a "solution".

IMO we are at at fork in civilization, and it seems we are choosing the less free, less private path

Yes, pervasive DNA testing, sequencing even, poses some extremely serious privacy risks. Everyone certainly has the right to know the results of their own tests. But arguably, everyone also has the right to keep those results private. Both from commercial third parties, and from the general public.

>> One can not have freedom with out privacy. As we destroy the concept of privacy we also destroy the concept of freedom.

People increasingly do not care about freedom / liberty. This is evident by the people we elect and the things we care about. We celebrate gaining civil rights at the expense of liberty and no one cares about Snowden's revelations or anyone other exposure of government overreach.

Freedom is rapidly dying along with privacy.

Brave New World is winning over 1984.

> One can not have freedom with out privacy.

Why is that? I want both, but I think they are different things.

Sometimes I think people conflate freedom to mean that ones/or others actions/words are free from consequences now and forever more into the future… or want something without taking sufficient steps to insure something or at least be honest that one may not be completely free because of their lack of ability to insure agaisnt some downside.

With respect to technology, it seems like there's this expectation among some that one can be completely ignorant of the tools at the same time expecting such tools to be completely beholden to ones wishes.

Some people think clicking a few buttons gives them privacy… others think putting those who could exploit their privacy 6 feet under gives them privacy (sometimes with the backing of a nation state or several)… and in the real world, both of those solutions aren't 100% effective.

Richard Posner wrote about this in 1978 way better than I can today (and in much greater detail)[0]

[0] http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

How can you be free if you are under continual surveillance your ever action judged in real time on mass, your ever past action judged based on the current feelings of the day, your every comment, word spoken, person you interacted with, etc judged and recriminated on a on going basis.

Every movement monitored, every interaction recorded.

Are you free in such a society? I say no....

I take "free" to mean that no one else decides what I should do.

So if a mugger has a gun to your head and say "Your money or your life" do you have freedom because you have a choice to choose???

No one is deciding if you should choose to give up your money

That may be hyperbolic but it is the logical conclusion to your statement.

This same argument is used by people to justify their mob mentality when going after people for wrong think and target their employment, and business relationships while claiming to support free speech believing that free speech is only violated if government is censoring

I reject this idea that freedom is only limited by governments

> So if a mugger has a gun to your head and say "Your money or your life" do you have freedom because you have a choice to choose???

That would be a prototypical case of _not_ being free.

You mean misattributed paternity. Misattributed parentage happens mainly to men. It's a much more involved process to defraud a woman of her child than a man.

I guess the two mechanisms that come to mind:

1. Drug and kidnap the woman, implant an embryo that isn't hers, and bring her back home without her finding out.

2. Switch the baby with another plausible-looking one in the hospital. (I have heard this happens more than one might expect. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-08-16/features/1998228... says "About 28,000 babies get switched in hospitals every year, temporarily or permanently, out of four million births", though "most mistakes are fixed before the baby leaves the hospital".)

3. The mother is a genetic chimera whose womb has differing DNA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild

An IVF mixup is another...

Or a kid who was unknowingly raised by their grandparents is an example where you’d see both parents misattributed.

> Or a kid who was unknowingly raised by their grandparents is an example where you’d see both parents misattributed.

I know a guy who this happened to. He got a Mormon girl pregnant and was basically paid to go away, and the child was raised by the grandparents.

> It's a much more involved process to defraud a woman of her child than a man.

Misattributed parentage here is misinforming (intentionally or not) children about their parents. Misinforming supposed or actual parents (what you seem to be concerned about) may or may not be involved.

We went with the phrase used in the article.

Since some people don't know that they were adopted, it's not just about paternity.

I didn't say it was just about paternity, just that it is mainly about paternity. Similar to how breast cancer is mainly a women's issue, despite some men getting it as well. The article makes something that is not equal seem equal. That was my one nit.

It's not unknown for women to come home from hospital with the wrong baby. Here's an example from earlier this year: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/wrong-newbor...

When I was born in 1988 the hospital gave the wrong baby to my mother to bring home. She realized pretty quickly and they corrected the mistake. I’m sure this doesn’t happen much anymore, but had she not realized she probably wouldn’t have ever known. Obviously that mixup would affect my dad too.

Imagine that you are the one doing customer support at one of these companies ...

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