With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce
vox.com
vox.com
When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. "I thought it was the coolest genetics story, my own personal genetics story. I wasn't particularly upset about it initially, until the rest of the family found out, and their reaction was different."
His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son. "Years of repressed memories and emotions uncorked and resulted in tumultuous times that have torn my nuclear family apart. We're not anywhere close to being healed yet, and I don't know how long it will take to put the pieces back together."
Yeah, like that would have kept George or anyone else from opening this particularly fascinating Pandora's box.
I have a complicated family background myself (not willing to go into it in public under this handle), but in George's shoes, I would not have pushed this; in particular, I would not have told Thomas about his father nearly as easily.
Could you clarify?
To the extent that I can back it up at all, it seems to be something to do with the concern George has with how his family feels about this - the interpersonal aspects. Which, when stated this clearly, seems ridiculous, since obviously men can have just as much concern about their families breaking up as women can.
It was just a feeling I had while reading the piece.
* George Doe, rather than John Doe; an alias possibly chosen for gender ambiguity, bringing to mind George Elliot
* Uninhibited display of emotion with emphasis: "fell in love with", "so exited about", "so confused", "freaked out", "immediately felt empathetic", "really devastated" - there's loads more. Men tend to take much less vulnerable verbal positions.
Interestingly, a coworker just brought up this article beside me a few minutes ago (not knowing I'd already read it), and he too thought it was a woman writing.
This was the sentence that made "I think George is a girl" pop into my head. It just seems more like a relationship that two sisters would have.
Personally, I am not sure why the sister is so upset. It's just another sibling, which should bring happiness. But in a world where lawsuits are common, maybe she also feels threatened (sharing of inheritance, for example?).
I think it is fair that the mother is upset. She has to deal with more "baggage." But I don't think this is worth divorcing over. Things must not have been that solid for this to end up in divorce. A strong marriage should have survived this.
It's probably not a good idea to speculate on the relative strength of other people's marriages, especially internet speculation. We still don't know everything that happened; nor should we. So, let's not pretend that we know what is going on here.
The basis of the story is that with genetic testing with a service like 23andMe you can find things that you may not have wanted to have known or expected. Let's just leave it at that.
Absolutely. When we make bold assertions like "X would Y" we are bringing a huge amount of personal bias, baggage and most of all ignorance to the table. It blinkers us to the vast range of possible realities that our impoverished imaginations (and our imaginations are always impoverished) are incapable of conjuring.
As an exercise, before posting "X must be Y" it is very much worth-while thinking of half-a-dozen movie scripts that could tell a story that would fit the known facts. In the present case they might look like:
1) Basil Fawlty-like character goes off the deep end upon discovering child from before his marriage
2) Uptight wife divorces husband for youthful indiscretion
3) Husband's former double-life as a spy revealed by accident of genetic testing
4) Husband's former criminal life revealed by accident of genetic testing
5) Christian wife divorces when accident of genetic testing reveals husband was not a virgin at marriage as he had always claimed
6) Radical feminist wife leaves husband when she finds out he once patronized--and impregnated--a prostitute...
The only thing we can say with any degree of certainty is that the reality is far weirder than anything we can imagine. It almost always is.
In none of the above cases would the marriage necessarily be describe as "not strong" prior to being put to the test.
To claim that "a strong marriage should have survived this" is vacuous tautology: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1087. It is true that a marriage strong enough to survive whatever happened would have survived whatever happened. It is also true that a big enough blow will disrupt anything weak enough to be disrupted by that blow (http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/hymn_strain.html)
But the initial statement is true in a probabilistic sense. A strong marriage most of the time will survive learning about this kind of event that happened well before the marriage started. That the marriage didn't survive is not conclusive, but does suggest that it was probably not a strong marriage.
I don't see any problem with that, as long as there is a clear distinction made between what is known and what is weak likely conjecture (and it's anonymous).
It's like soldiers, no one questions that they conspire to kill people, it's whether they are heros or murderers.
So maybe the mother had felt (probably for years) that the father wasn't appreciating her enough. And now he's making more effort to connect with this unknown child than he's spent on his wife and other children in years... suddenly the pent-up dissatisfaction comes out into the open, grievances are aired and people say hurtful things that make reconciliation impossible...
In this situation I can imagine talking to my father about it, but talking to everyone else in a family was a decision he made. I'm not passing judgment either way, but he wasn't like he was passive here.
Sounds like they just wanted an excuse for a divorce.
Or the story is bs.
I'm in 23andme, and I get messages saying "someone who is your 4th/5th/6th cousin wants to connect" all the time. I figure if I was given a bit of DNA from a crime scene, by cross-referencing all of the 4th,5th, and 6th cousins, the number of potential people matching that DNA has got to be tiny.
Science fiction dystopias used to hypothesize a complete DNA database but I'm pretty sure even the spotty coverage we have now is pretty powerful.
http://hstlj.org/articles/concerns-associated-with-expanding...
If it's just a matter of computational power for a given price, that problem will easily be solved in a few years.
Wow, got a source for that?
In the months before Osama bin Laden was killed, the Central Intelligence Agency ran a phony vaccination program in Abbottabad, Pakistan, as a ruse to obtain DNA evidence from members of Bin Laden’s family thought to be holed up in an expansive compound there, according to an American official.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/19/politics/cia-vaccination/
A newly disclosed CIA policy mandates that it won't use vaccination programs as part of its operations, according to the Obama administration.
The directive by CIA Director John Brennan, made nine months ago but only coming to light now, followed concerns raised by leaders of a dozen U.S. public health schools in a letter to President Barack Obama.
They spoke out following revelations the CIA had enlisted a doctor to oversee a false immunization campaign in Pakistan ahead of the 2011 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.
I'm an American and I'm repulsed by what is often done in my name by my "intelligence" agencies.
> it won't use vaccination programs
Next up, "immunization" programs? Disease tests? Vitamin supplements?
I don't think the CIA could ever find another doctor to help it with a similar scheme. Not after what happened to Dr. Afridi. [1]
This doctor has been put thru a living hell. Prison in Pakistan is probably no Sunday picnic in the best of circumstances. But in this case there are allegations of torture involving cigarette burns and electric shocks.
So if the CIA ever approaches anyone who's ever heard of The Information Superhighway, aka The Internet, maybe that new guy will be smart enough to google for whatever happened to the guy who help us catch Bin Laden.
Also, if you believe the claims by Pakistan that the doctor is being prosecuted for crimes other than helping the USA, I'll leave you with how Seth Meyers put it on SNL Weekend Update after OJ Simpson was convicted of robbery in Las Vegas:
Today, a jury in Las Vegas found OJ Simpson
“guilty” on all seven counts against him,
including kidnapping, aggravated assault,
and theft. But really... Murder. [2]
The damage is done. What the CIA promises afterwards is not going to carry any weight where this matters.
However, telomeres are repetitive code, and not amenable to standard PCR and sequencing methods (as far as I know). I don't know if the amounts of DNA or chromosomes typical in forensic samples are enough for the techniques used to measure telomere length. Well maybe they are, if the Danish group is working on this.
This is not a case like CNV (copy number variation) where a whole gene can appear a number of times, so I think this is somewhat possible by PCR (though probably not very precise).
How?
If the repeated sequence is longer than the chunk you have no hope of knowing how many times it repeats, if on the other hand it's much shorter (I think it's 6 bases for telomeres) you can see a good number of repetitions per chunk.
If you want to know something more detailed about sequencing and CNV I can send you a couple of sections from my PhD dissertation.
I have always assumed that the airport scanners are also collecting biometrics on everyone for video identification purposes and for that reason I try to avoid them.
I believe he has some point. Humans generally have multiple (mostly highly-overlapping) [sub-]identities, one per clique. And we usually don't like mixing them too much. We're one person at work, but a bit different one at a close friends' party.
Our genetic data is a part of the picture but not a whole picture. That's somehow in a same manner your photo identifies you, but when you have a photo of random person on a street you're unlikely to easily figure out their name.
So photos and DNA have very different properties when it comes to identity, and barring some stupendously unlikely coincidence (or an identical twin or clone) your DNA is much more unique than your photo will ever be (witness the number of celebrity doubles).
(However, if all his near relatives would do the same, all one could figure out that John Doe is probably a relative of a Jane Doe. And they're somewhat related to other people with real names, but at least deanonymizing requires more work and other databases.)
In old days we had only 1 digit phone numbers in our village. 0 was the operator, 1 was Dr. Jones, 2 was the parish priest, 3 was the butcher, 5 was the greengrocer, 6 was the local contractor, 7 the constable, 8 mrs. Smith, 9 the Jacksons and we had a secret number.
Of course, the other way to interpret this is that his parents weren't really okay with the status quo, at least one of them either hadn't put enough thought into what happened, didn't know the whole story, or was entirely in the dark. The author may feel that it would be better to not know that information, but that information is truth, and represents who the people involved really are or were. I have little patience for being asked to help support others delusion.
Edit: s/rather now know/rather not know/
> When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. [...] His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son.
They did. According to the editor, they don't anymore: "[Note: 23 and Me has since switched to an opt out system, where users will automatically be enrolled in the close relatives finder program.]"
We don't know the circumstances under which the father and his then-girlfriend had given up their son for adoption. However, that seems to have happened decades ago.
I'm not sure why no one is now talking to the dad for something that happened decades ago.
" the child was not the result of adultery "
It's this kind of careless disclosure of sensitive information that makes more than a few of the non-consumer-facing organizations (not to mention the FDA) a bit wary of companies like 23andMe.
I haven't used 23andMe so I can't speak to how well their ordering system addresses this issue beyond what the article states. Regardless, customers ordering these kinds of panels should be well informed as to what they're getting into.
EDIT: I did mean "wary" not "weary"
Although I'm a bit surprised that to remove DNA info, you need to close your entire account, at which point they will "remove all Genetic Information within your account (or profile) within thirty (30) days of our receipt of your request".
Or maybe not: "Our contracted genotyping laboratory may also retain your Genetic Information as required by local law and we may retain backup copies for a limited period of time pursuant to our data protection policies."
It is "wary". Please. Please.
When the meaning is that ambiguous, you should probably be kinder and more reserved in your attempts to correct it.
Come to think of it, most of the time "wary" is used to refer to reaction resulting from a worrying pattern of behavior, "weary" probably is also accurate, even if its not what the author is most concerned with communicating.
I hope none of this feels like a personal attack. At the end of the day you're still entitled to your decision and opinion. I just know how I would feel or act. The feelings of only one person matter in this instance and it wouldn't be me, if I were in your shoes.
That same idea applies here too. This article illustrates that there will be other, nuanced perils to bioinformatics besides rewarding genetic lottery winners and punishing losers. Genetic testing is a powerful tool that should be used wisely. Of course, it will be a bumpy road until society settles on what "wisely" means.
Despite space ships the depicted civilization didn't improve a lot. (and that's just the work conditions - leisure time practically doesn't exist in the movie)
This is also a very good argument for honesty - it's very hard to figure out when and how you'll get called out on lies.
Keeping secrets didn't -- the marriage ended as a fairly direct result of the secret failing to continue to be kept.
If you fuck up and no one knows about it shut up and don't make your family go through it. It's your guilt, be an adult and live with it.
'conscious clearing' is childish and selfish.
That's very much not my point, which is rather that the proximate cause of the result here was secrets being exposed.
Of course, if secrets aren't kept in the first place, they can't be exposed, and lots of time, while not risk free, a timely voluntary disclosure can produce a lot better results than a involuntary revelation (and involuntary revelations happen a lot more often than people trying to keep secrets think they will.)
There are, additionally, moral issues to consider. Concealing facts material to other people's decisions denies them effective consent, a basic fact which underlies fraud laws, but whose moral scope extends far beyond commercial transactions.
If the secret/lie comes out later, then the consequences are often far worse than they would have been if you had been honest.
If you have lied or deliberately misled, everything you have ever said might be up for questioning.
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Could have been a 1 night stand and he never knew. Of course him and mom could be super religious and swore to each other they're virgins. Or for extra stress, mom 1.0 is mom 2.0's best friend or ex roommate or co worker or something. I dated two roommates in university (not at the same time) and they both knew it, but eventually it was just too stressful and I was spun out of orbit.
(edited for another possibility: One spouse thinks 18 years of child support is a great idea and the other disagrees. Not exactly the first time financial stress collapses a marriage)
Another peculiarity about the story is it has a fixation on:
"people discover their parents aren't their parents"
Well assuming no adoption, birth mom usually is mom, although much more often her husband isn't kids genetic father. It would be quite impressive although possible I guess to discover your birth mom isn't your genetic mom. Maybe an epic fail or record keeping at the fertility clinic, I guess. Statistically it sounds much more likely you'll find out mom's husband isn't dad more than you'll find out birth mom isn't mom.
If Dad didn't know that he had a child, and found out along with Mom, then the divorce is the fault of good-old-fashioned Puritanism.
I assumed it's the first - but regardless, airing out "I had a child who was born at %date" isn't something that ruins relationships by itself.
It sounds like the big contention was that he wanted to contact his son, not that the son existed.
Whether secret or known, why should any woman want a man that would be so careless with his own offspring that they end up being adopted by strangers and searching for their parents all their life?
Whether secret or not, why should any woman want a man who has children by another woman?
Whether secret or not, why should any woman want a man who is apparently really bad at using contraceptives?
Maybe it wouldn't have been a divorce, it just would never have been a marriage in the first place. But whatever the eventual result, the problem was that the father was a piece of shit.
Are you trolling? Marrying someone with pre-existing children is so profoundly non-scandalous that it was the premise for The Brady Bunch.
Either way, I think the author being a geneticist should pretty much understand that if you're trying to find relatives, you might actually find relatives.
I tend to think this should be opt-in, but as long as both parties have the box checked, it seems like perfectly valid functionality to me.
Because in the grand scheme of things all of the above are insignificant BS, that could happen to anyone, especially at a young age, without precluding that the man/women who had that would turnup a wonderful person to be with and a good husband.
I mean "why should any woman want a man who has children by another woman"? What are you, 15-years old?
"We can't be sure, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and its hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex."
I have half my dad's DNA and half my mom's, so does my sister. So therefore wouldn't we both share 50% of our DNA? If we were brothers it would be closer to 100%. So a half sibling should be the same as a sister in this aspect. I have a half brother too, so we both got 50% of our DNA from our mother. So we are 50% similar, not 25%.
Is my math wrong?
With a full sibling of the opposite sex, you share about 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes (half of the 23 each of you got from mom will be the same) and 11.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22; you know the 23rd is different), for a total of 22.5 out of 46 which is 49%.
If you're both the same sex, you share on average 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes and 12.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22, and you know the 23rd is the same), which makes you around 51% similar.
Slightly off topic, but no wonder it's also difficult to make people realize the reality about religion(s). The same 'ignorance is bliss' head-in-the-sand mentality is working behind the scenes many times.
This is interesting. If you had an incredibly happy life, why would you always choose potentially emotionally damaging truth over that? Especially if the alternative is that you never know there is a lie and that lie doesn't actually matter.
The problem with this story is that effectively nothing had changed that wasn't already there.
I found out my dad had been married prior to being married to my mom. It's a long and interesting story but it never made me think less of him (insofar as that was still possible), in fact in some ways it redeemed him and made me understand him a little bit better.
And then people making decisions solely based on this number.
Plus most people are not able to interpret what these genetic risks mean for them, so delivering the results directly (not through a doctor or preferably genetic counselor) is risky. People tend to think of genes as laws or rules, as guarantees, when really our genomes are complex if-then clauses (if this chemical hits this receptor transcribe that bit there). What if someone decides to get a double masectomy because of BRCA mutations? That's a traumatic, expensive procedure, and maybe riskier than the cancer risk; in any case, it's a decision that should be made with a medical professional.
Finally, 23andMe inexplicably flipped a big old bird to the FDA, their own regulatory agency, by NOT RESPONDING TO THE FDA FOR 6 MONTHS before the warning letter. That's just irresponsible and foolish.
Biotech has a crazy amount of regulation, but I think 23andMe deserved this one
Read more here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/03/why-the-fdas-anvil-dropped...
Hank (the interviewee) is a really great writer and teacher if you want to learn more about bioethical issues
In this particular case, the FDA appears to be concerned that 23andMe are essentially providing the sort of information known as "medical advice" without sufficient context. And (regardless of whether they are correct in this case) that sort of thing can be dangerous.
You are right about the "context" of the information. Test results need to be shared with the individual by a trained genetics counselor. Interpreting genetic results requires knowledge of the subject and ability to express complex and emotionally charged information in a sensitive and ethically appropriate way. Not much fudge room there.
Another aspect is FDA standards of procedures and accuracy of test results for genetic conditions (where gene frequencies are known). Presumably 23andMe would have show that it meets those standards in order to provide the related results. Most likely to be more trouble than it's worth to them.
For example the Prostate-Specific Antigen test is a good example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate-specific_antigen#Scree...
While PSA testing may help 1 in 1,000 avoid death due to prostate cancer, 4 to 5 in 1,000 would die from prostate cancer after 10 years even with screening. Expected harms include anxiety for 100 – 120 receiving false positives, biopsy pain, and other complications from biopsy for false positive tests. Of those found to have prostate cancer, frequent overdiagnosis is common because most cases of prostate cancer are not expected to cause any symptoms. Men found to have prostate cancer usually (up to 90% of cases) elect to receive treatment. Therefore many will experience the side effects of treatment, such as for every 1,000 men screened, 29 will experience erectile dysfunction, 18 will suffer urinary incontinence, 2 will have serious cardiovascular events, 1 will suffer pulmonary embolus or deep venous thrombosis, and 1 perioperative death.[5]
According to 23andMe (or at least their marketing) it's accurate medical information. The FCC wants them to prove that or stop marketing it as such -- a request that is beyond reasonable.
http://singularityhub.com/2013/11/26/fda-tells-23andme-to-st...
Sometimes I wonder, did forgetting/hiding of the hard truth caused the inability to handle them? Or because of?
Note: They currently do not offer the medical checks due to government audit or something.
To me that seems a sensible standard to uphold, and obviously not a task a company like 23andMe could responsibly accomplish. Perhaps there could be a mechanism for the test results to be forwarded to a qualified counselor who could go over the results with the individual who provided the genetic sample.
And it doesn't look like these types of companies have a great track record....
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/i-had-my-dna-pictu...
> 23andMe said my most elevated risks — about double the average for women of European ethnicity — were for psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, with my lifetime odds of getting the diseases at 20.2 percent and 8.2 percent. But according to Genetic Testing Laboratories, my lowest risks were for — you guessed it — psoriasis (2 percent) and rheumatoid arthritis (2.6 percent).
> In the case of Type 2 diabetes, inconsistencies on a semantic level masked similarities in the numbers. G.T.L. said my risk was “medium” at 10.3 percent, but 23andMe said my risk was “decreased” at 15.7 percent. In fact, both companies had calculated my odds to be roughly three-quarters of the average, but they used slightly different averages — and very different words — to interpret the numbers. In isolation, the first would have left me worried; the second, relieved.
It's not a trivial matter at all. Recently I discussed this with a friend who teaches genomics. He was excited about the possibilities of applying genomic knowledge in the public health arena. The idea was testing newborns, even before delivery (in utero), to spot potential health problems and use the methods available to address them.
I pointed out the ethical quagmire this is going to expose. People have a right to know, and as much not know, what their genes might reveal. Forcing people to confront predictions of illness or differences with social implications will be a nightmare to deal with.
The case presented in the article is merely the tip of the iceberg of ethical dilemmas. We certainly are living in interesting times.
Edit: Answered my own question. http://blog.23andme.com/news/23andme-provides-an-update-rega...
Shouldn't that read, "a brother from a grandfather"?
Something tells me the author would have checked the box even if it required a physical key. Time to reread the myth of Pandora's Box.
YMMV, and not everyone agrees, but there is a body of thought that the fundamental problem of life is doing something effective about the anxiety of feeling alone, that the best solution is the joining with and love of spouse and the associated family and its bonds (as in common marriage vows), and that love making, especially causing conception of another human, is a crucial part of family formation, bonding, joining, love, and security against the anxieties of being alone. Then infidelity, dishonesty, deception, violation of vows, etc. are torpedoes just below the water line of a Good Ship Loving Home and Family and, thus, a disaster for all involved.
Net, good to see, even with the agony of this story, that some people still care about the ideals of a traditional family.
It is easy for someone to be fooled about traditional views of love, home, and family, that is, regard these views as so good, beneficial, and attractive, nearly universally, that a candidate life partner would also leap to embrace and honor the views. Alas, too often too many people fail to see and/or act on such views.
Art is sometimes defined as the communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion, and some of the strongest emotions have to do with the family and love issues here. Then, we can find some art that communicates the agony of love, home, and family destroyed. E.g., there is the Renata Scotto performance of the aria "Un bel di vedremo" from the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly as at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSdz2hM_o4
Apparently Puccini was correct that audiences would see the reasons for the agony expressed in that aria; that is, many in the audience would understand that love making was one of the most important issues in all of life and that often casual sex was quite serious and not at all casual. Similarly for the intimacy of giving knowledge of self, honesty, trust, fidelity, etc.
To me, good to know; to me, regarding traditional marriage vows and love, home, marriage, and physical love making as casual or just a joke is rot in the foundations of our society. So, it's good to see that not everyone accepts such rot of our society.
So if you want to draw unfounded conclusions go right ahead but the story definitely does not confirm your chosen beliefs.
In fact, if there is one thing that you can take away from this story it is that mere information was capable of destroying one of those homes full of love you're going on about without either partner ever breaking their marriage vows.
In part, right.
> For all you know from the facts as displayed by the story that was a perfect family and the dad never knew he made the woman pregnant.
Strictly speaking, yes. But we have to expect that usually the man will know if the woman he had sex with did get pregnant. E.g., legally he can be on the hook for supporting the child until she/he is 18. Also if the couple was intimate enough to conceive a child, then typically they are also intimate enough to communicate that they did conceive a child.
> In fact, if there is one thing that you can take away from this story it is that mere information was capable of destroying one of those homes full of love you're going on about without either partner ever breaking their marriage vows.
Strictly speaking, yes. But the story is not very complete in the details, e.g., we don't have dates. So, a guess from the story is that the child discovered was the result of adultery within the marriage; indeed, otherwise there was relatively little reason for the discovery to break up the marriage.
Whatever did happen when, adultery or not, that the marriage did break up does indicate that at least one of the partners cared a lot about the issue of the so far unknown child; that is, someone really cared a lot about, if you will, 'traditional family values' whether there was actual adultery or not.
Yes, some relationships can be both not casual and broken up. But one of the main reasons for a relationship is 'commitment' where both partners believe that with their relationship they have a long-term, not just a 24 hour, solution to 'the fundamental problem of life', doing something effective about feeling alone. Then, being casual about a relationship ending shows too little understanding of much of the reason for a relationship, that is, knowing that have the problem of being alone solved for 24 hours, 48 hours, a week, a month, a year, a decade, for life. Indeed, lots of details in our legal system are to this end thus indicating that some people value such commitment. Or, a relationship should not be like a car that just trade in on a new model -- pun intended. Such a trade in has to suggest that the origin of the relationship involved a lie, that is, a false claim or suggestion that there was love in the sense of commitment. Indeed, some people who pursue and defend casual sex do admit that one of the main issues is not lying, that is, being clear that the sex is just casual, say, like playing a game of ping pong, and not a commitment for the future.
For your last paragraph, why did the information destroy the home if there was no adultery and, really, the father was not aware of the pregnancy? So, since the home did break up, I have to suspect that there was some deception involved, either adultery or at least just deliberate lack of communications, that is, deliberate concealment. Such poor communications is a lack of intimacy and, thus, a lack of intimate love and, thus, a bad biggie for the relationship. Or, as in E. Fromm, the couple is supposed to give knowledge of themselves to each other, if you will, take all their clothes off between their ears.
I have to return to my broad view: Casual sex isn't; sex is serious; really there's no such thing as casual sex. I'm pleased that some others see something at least similar.
The rest of your conjecture is mostly you applying your own bias to an absence of information. It's a circular argument to use that to support a sense of traditional values.
For all we know the previous relationship was years long and not at all casual. Unless you're going to interpret any non-marriage relationship as 'casual' I don't think you have any evidence in favor of your main point. Especially since this shows a sliver of failed intimacy utterly destroying love and marriage vows. It's not like the man was living a double life, this is something that never came up. To say that their multiple decades of intimacy were not good enough and this shows the true importance of intimacy is nothing more than No True Scotsman.
And I severely doubt that it shows the importance of sexual intercourse either. Just the importance of children, which everyone (to first approximation) agrees with.
I'm not getting your answer to the question of why the sudden knowledge of the child conceived, say, before the marriage, broke up the (long) marriage? My answer is that either (1) evidence of adultery or (2) (as you claim is argued in this thread, no adultery so) lack of open communications, that is, lack of that part of intimate love. To me, answer (2) looks tough to believe. That is, why break up love, home, and marriage over a love child conceived before the marriage, especially given the chance that the man was unaware of the pregnancy? Since you also don't like answer (1), adultery, I'm left without knowing what your explanation is.
My personal preferences aside, if adultery is the only believable answer, then it looks like someone regarded adultery as a really serious problem, enough to break up love, home, and marriage, and, thus, evidence of strong respect for (my) traditional family values.
And, you lost me on a second point: It seems that you are saying that the important glue of a romantic relationship, with marriage or not, is having children and not really just sexual intercourse. In that case, given that the marriage did have children, why use sexual intercourse, with children or not, from adultery or not, as a reason to break up the marriage?
I'll try to be more clear: A traditional view of much of the meaning of sexual intercourse is the implied bonding and, thus, joining of two lives. It's mostly the promise of long term love, bonding, joining, security, etc. that makes sexual intercourse attractive and important. In this way, sexual intercourse becomes important in the marriage, even without children yet or ever. But in part you seem to be saying (1) what is important about sexual intercourse in the marriage is any resulting conceptions yet (2) are saying that loss of love and home, beyond considerations of children, is a tragedy. So, it seems that with (1) you are saying that sexual intercourse without children is not very important but with (2) you are saying that loss of that part of love is important. You seem to be saying that Bob and Martha can have a great marriage with three great children, still are swingers and have semi-public sexual intercourse with a crowd of strangers or casual friends, yet break up their marriage once there is knowledge of a love child conceived before the marriage. I can understand traditional values and even swingers, but I can't understand how such parts of those two can be combined in one marriage.
This is a story that makes you think twice about whether 23andme is a cool, fun purchase/present.
This is why such ad hoc testing has been prohibited in many countries (Germany, most recently.)
Yes, about every third reader of this is deluded about her/his biological father. Deal with it.
The actual rate is likely somewhere between 1-3%.
More detail here: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2730/whos-your-dadd...
Didn't it cross anyone's mind that such things would be uncovered? Or that it would always "be cool"? Opt-out? Really?
Money and technology before ethics.
But I'm still left with a question. What does "25% similarity" means? I mean, humans have more than 99% in common genes with the Chimpanzee, so is this a specific set of genes or what exactly?
The human genome is ~3 billion bases long (haploid), so even looking at that 1%, that's still millions of possible variations. Only close family members will have significant overlap.
What 23andMe measures are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These are variations that are known to occur within the general population. For each of these positions, they can tell if you are homozygous (2 copies with the same ACGT), or heterozygous (One copy A, and another T, for example). Once you take all of that SNP data, you can get a good estimate of how closely related you are to another person. If you share the same patterns, you're likely related.
50% similarity would only be possible between a parent and a child. 25% would be likely between half siblings.
So when I hear 25% similarity, I'm thinking that it means that 25% of the chromosomes for person A are very similar to chromosomes for person B, and that the remaining chromosomes are not as similar. This is just relative similarity, the overall similarity will be quite high.