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Genetic Studies Prove Cuckolded Fathers Are Rare In Human Populations
HughPickens.com writes: A common urban myth is that many fathers are cuckolded into raising children that genetically are not their own -- a fear fueled by the paternity tests that have become a standard staple of gossip magazines, talk shows, and TV series. Now, Carl Zimmer reports at the New York Times that our obsession with cuckolded fathers is seriously overblown as a number of recent genetic studies have challenged the notion that mistaken paternity is commonplace. It wasn't until DNA sequencing emerged in the 1990s that paternity tests earned the legal system's confidence. Labs were able to compare DNA markers in children to those of their purported fathers to see if they matched. As the lab tests piled up, researchers collated the results and came to a startling conclusion: 10 percent to 30 percent of the tested men were not the biological fathers of their children. There's only one problem with these previous studies: the results didn't come from a random sample of people. The people who ordered the tests already had reason to doubt paternity.
In a 2013 study, Dr. Maarten H.D. Larmuseau used Belgium's detailed birth records to reconstruct large family genealogies reaching back four centuries. Then the scientists tracked down living male descendants and asked to sequence their Y chromosomes. Y chromosomes are passed down in almost identical form from fathers to sons. Men who are related to the same male ancestor should also share his Y chromosome, providing that some unknown father didn't introduce his own Y [chromosome] somewhere along the way. Comparing the chromosomes of living related men, Larmuseau came up with a cuckoldry rate of less than 1 percent. Similar studies have generally produced the same low results in such countries as Spain, Italy and Germany, as well as agricultural villages in Mali. "The observed low EPP rates challenge the idea that women routinely 'shop around' for good genes by engaging in extra-pair copulations," concludes Larmuseau . "The (potential) genetic benefits of extra-pair children are unlikely to be offset by the (potential) costs of being caught, particularly in such a long-lived species as humans with heavy offspring dependence and massive parental investment."
In a 2013 study, Dr. Maarten H.D. Larmuseau used Belgium's detailed birth records to reconstruct large family genealogies reaching back four centuries. Then the scientists tracked down living male descendants and asked to sequence their Y chromosomes. Y chromosomes are passed down in almost identical form from fathers to sons. Men who are related to the same male ancestor should also share his Y chromosome, providing that some unknown father didn't introduce his own Y [chromosome] somewhere along the way. Comparing the chromosomes of living related men, Larmuseau came up with a cuckoldry rate of less than 1 percent. Similar studies have generally produced the same low results in such countries as Spain, Italy and Germany, as well as agricultural villages in Mali. "The observed low EPP rates challenge the idea that women routinely 'shop around' for good genes by engaging in extra-pair copulations," concludes Larmuseau . "The (potential) genetic benefits of extra-pair children are unlikely to be offset by the (potential) costs of being caught, particularly in such a long-lived species as humans with heavy offspring dependence and massive parental investment."
They have kids with the high testosterone alpha males, and then some of them go on to do menial work, turn out to be aggressive, or they simply grow tired of each other after some years. But their first choice is usually some animalistic notion of "good genes".
And then later when they're older and wiser they marry the type of beta male they had friendzoned before, because they're more peaceful, less risk-taking and often smarter and more successul.
Read: Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.
While that is idealistic and noble you will find that the vast majority of people care very much so. The thought of raising someone else's child typically has associations of infidelity. Society in general is monogamous even if most humans do cheat on a partners at least once at some point in life.
Perhaps all genetics have "bugs" yours might not be worse than the unknown and there is an advantage of knowing about such "bugs". Even if yours are severe the adopted might be worse. No real guarantees.
I believe that from inception humans are born to compete. To be better. From the fertilization of an egg to achieving anything in life. Sure there is a lot of bias and corruption and some unworthy humans have a head start in a position of privilege that it seems plain unfair.
So most humans, as vessels for our genes are often very precious about us and what is our and of our own. The way you live, where you live, who your parents and grandparents are (genetically) shapes you as a person and your offspring.
There are particular sets of difficulties when a child is known to be of a different parent. From social stigma to tendencies to biological/genetic differences that one parent's ego can find extremely challenging.
While many women would choose to adopt, especially if they cannot have children of their own many men will give serious consideration to changing their to one that is fertile rather than adopt or at least have a surrogate mother as they want the child's gene to be of their own.
We are not in the group because we love the group. We are in the group because we love ourselves. The group helps protect us, has economies of scale and sense of community. We would save our children first and foremost.
While you may not care and I applaud you for the often believed enlightened position I care. I believe the vast majority of people care.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
... your dna is broken.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Who cares if it ain't yours?
So you have no reservations about an alpha male copulating with a desirable female before you do, and then leaving you with the emotional and financial burden of his conquest (in the form of offspring)? I'm sure every guy who has ever ejaculated in a woman who wasn't his wife has at least once thought "This could cause complications.....but that's ok, some schmuck will come along and pick up the pieces." You're ok being that hypothetical schmuck?
He/she might end up being easier to raise because he/she would have less chances of having the same genetic bugs than yours.
Do you have such low confidence in the quality of your genetic material that you consider another man's DNA an upgrade?
So in other words, pretty much the entire publishing caste, as well as the majority of the population, does not understand selection bias. That is a serious problem, but it's hardly surprising. An awful lot of the scientific studies that someone trumpets around as a confirmation of their pet worldview suffer from similar problems.
In many European countries, paternity tests are illegal. Seriously, importing a home paternity test has the same legal status as trying to import opium poppies. Surely if cuckoldry is so rare, then there is no need for these laws.
Recently, a French journalist was astounded by the fact that in America, paternity testing is 100% safe and 100% legal. He stated that such ideas are inconceivable in France. That puts a whole new twist on the popular American conception of French people as free-spirited and open in every way when it comes to sex and relationships.
Left unsaid is why a woman would do this to the man she loves. Why would she go outside of her relationship and deliberately allow herself to be impregnated by another man, one she does not love? The whole thing is baffling to educated people. More research is clearly called for...but I bet it won't happen.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Your DNA cares. You serve largely to pass it on, and if the kid isn't yours, and you pick up on the clues, you're probably hardwired to reject the little mite.
There is more to it, of course, but that would all seem to make sense from a DNA/evolution point of view.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Aren't you missing the fact that(for the purposes of the study at least, I'm not sure if common use differs from this) 'cuckolded father' means 'man raising a child he is not the father of under the mistaken belief that he is the father'?
Even if your promiscuous-poor-people-and-negroids theory pans out; it only implies an increase in cuckoldry if that promiscuity leads to incorrect assignments of paternity and paternal obligation. You could be so enthusiastically promiscuous that even your heterozygotic twins sometimes have different fathers; and it still wouldn't count as "cuckoldry" for the purposes of this study unless you've successfully deceived at least some of the fathers in question about which children are theirs(and, while it's obviously easier for a child to not be yours if promiscuity is the norm; knowledge of the fact that promiscuity is the norm probably makes people more skeptical about paternity, and thus trickier to mislead about it).
If this study actually claimed that 'expected number of fathers across all children born to a given woman' were low and largely constant across cultures; then yes, the existence of situations of high promiscuity and little or no expectation of nuclear family stability would be a counterexample. It's just that it doesn't do that. it only addresses successful deceptions about paternity; which apparently are some combination of 'not something that people actually try as often as believed' and 'something that people do try; but have a lousy success record on'(with the inclusion of some populations where genetic paternity testing isn't an inexpensive and mature technology, which suggests that whatever difficulties exist in successful cuckolding aren't merely a product of DNA testing).
In the grand scope of things, your DNA is basically diluted to nothing after a couple of generations.
The ideas and values you imprint on the kids you raise have a much greater chance of surviving and creating a legacy for you.
That's not to say that you should ever accept your spouse banging other people without your consent, but the DNA argument is somewhat flawed.
Eat the rich.
Until now...
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Who cares if it ain't yours?
So you have no reservations about an alpha male copulating with a desirable female before you do, and then leaving you with the emotional and financial burden of his conquest (in the form of offspring)? I'm sure every guy who has ever ejaculated in a woman who wasn't his wife has at least once thought "This could cause complications.....but that's ok, some schmuck will come along and pick up the pieces." You're ok being that hypothetical schmuck?
That would be more accurate if you change the bolded parts to "Someone else's wife".
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Wow. I hope you have zero children in real life. You would be a disaster to society.
Adoption is a great example of a child having an upbringing that is likely superior to the one she would've had biologically, and it makes sense that a woman would seek the security of her best mating even after she was pregnant with the child of an inferior mate.
Most importantly, there are seven billion virtual copies of you and your gene set... your genetic outcome is not as special as your psyche may need it to be.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
As is often the case, it's the coverup that tends to be the problem.
The reward for 'successfully propagated genes, is a winner at evolution' is often pretty unimpressive from the perspective of the individual(in situations where dying horribly to save your children or other genetic kin is evolutionarily advantageous, often downright lousy); so 'yeah; but that's not an adaptive strategy!!' is largely irrelevant when choosing between plans. You'll be dead inside a century regardless of whether your genes find new hosts or not, so it just doesn't matter much.
Adoptive parents, cases of material-mixups at fertility clinics, and cuckolds are all in exactly the same situation in terms of genetic inheritance; but the first group explicitly chose that outcome; the second didn't choose it; but didn't suffer it because of malice(much less malice from their partner, which is usually a worse problem than incompetence by some random lab tech); and the third group is in that situation because they are being lied to, on a matter usually considered important, by a partner. The genetic 'problem' is largely irrelevant; but the 'substantial probability of deliberate deception by a trusted insider' problem is usually a pretty dire sign.
...or rather Thea Merlyn :)
Lets put this awkward question to rest and do a paternity test on children immediately after they're born. If the mother lies on the birth certificate saying that the father is so and so and the test says otherwise then the husband is free to leave the wife. While taking the majority of the resources (and house) if he so desires
The crime of paternity fraud is on the same level as violent rape and should be prosecuted as such. There is no greater shame than knowing that the child you've been raising isn't yours.
You and your personal DNA would seemingly benefit from disseminating that seed as often and as widely as possible. The clear winner? Children from good homes and stable situations.
There are billions of near copies. Any individual's DNA, lost forever to humanity, is not a tragedy... no matter our inflated self-worth.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
the radical difference between these results and bloodbank studies - which have universally agreed with the results from paternity tests despite having a random sampling.
It also does not factor in Kinsey's findings about adultery and child-conception which strongly supports the idea that most children conceived from affairs would be conceived with somebody closely related to the legal husband, that is to say, somebody likely to share his Y-chromosome.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Actually, when you look at it as a probability problem - the odds of somebody having exactly your DNA is on the order of a hundred trillion to one, considering only about a hundred billion people have ever lived - I must therefore conclude that it is unlikely to impossible for you to exist. Since the same math applies to all people, they must all be products of my fevered imagination and can therefore be safely ignored.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The myth only had currency because it's "supposedly scientifically proven" result was so contrary to what one would guess at a gut level.
That, and it speaks directly to the deep-seated fear men have (since women started concealing estrus) of being cuckolded.
-Styopa
Cuckoldry is not the same as mistaken paternity. Especially not now that birth control is common, but even in the past women had substantial control on what time of month they were unfaithful. The face that the mistaken paternity rate is only around 1% does not imply that cuckoldry is not *much* higher.
Also, the 1% result was for the average mistaken paternity rate per generation over the past 400 years or so. I wonder how it has changed over time?
In the grand scope of things, your DNA is basically diluted to nothing after a couple of generations.
The ideas and values you imprint on the kids you raise have a much greater chance of surviving and creating a legacy for you.
In the grand scope of things your ideas and values are also diluted to nothing in a few generations as well. The ideas and values of the society you live in probably have a much greater effect than you do on your great grand children and you can forget about much beyond that. But it doesn't really matter, unless you're someone especially famous (like king tut or a president), you'll be completely forgotten in about 5 generations and even if you are someone famous, you're still stuck on this little blue dot that is going nowhere fast and everything you are will disappear into nothingness and the universe doesn't care.
Submitter says cuckoldry is "rare" and "Larmuseau came up with a cuckoldry rate of less than 1 percent," with a link, but if you actually on the link it says 1-2% (from the abstract).
::sigh:: I can answer my own question here. In the "results" section it gives, "rate of 0.91% (95% CI: 0.41–1.75%)." Note to submitter: this does not mean less than 1%. This means 1-2%, as given in the abstract. This is part of why abstracts exist - to give results in an unambiguous manner, so that they're not misinterpreted. Maybe it's not a big deal here, but it can be sometimes.
Raising children costs money approximately 15k a year, why would I sacrifice 15k of my hard earned money on some random child. Then there is the physiological damage done to a kid because his dad has so little respect for the mother and child he couldn't bother raising the child. The one supposed benefit is that the child might be easier to raise because they are not the same as me. I suspect you don't have any children of your own or are in a committed relationship and can't understand the ramifications of all of this.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
In the grand scope of things, your DNA is basically diluted to nothing after a couple of generations.
Nope. I'm a guy. My Y chromosome is not going to get diluted to nothing after a few generations as long as those generations include males.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
I can only agree. We had to use donor sperm for my wife to get pregnant as my little swimmers are lazy bums. I must say there are quite a few defects in my body that I'm only too happy not to pass along.
There is more to it, of course, but that would all seem to make sense from a DNA/evolution point of view.
Yup, there IS more to this.
The thing is, we didn't evolve as loners.
We did evolve living in small packs/tribes of more or less related individuals. (Or extended families a little bit later in history).
That adds a lot of complexity to the scheme.
- That's why we evolved altruism (the individual you're helping is most likely to be from your tribe, and you're likely to be related to it. By being nice to people, you *are* actually helping passing around more copy of your genes (including the genes that shaped said altruism behaviour). You just happen not to be the actual vessel passing around the genes).
- That's why adoption is a works very well with humans (the nearest child without parents is highly likely to be related to you. by raising the child, you increase the number of copies of your gene in the pool).
- That's why we evolved grand-mothers (in most species, genetic defect that manifest after the end of the reproductive life aren't much selected against: by the time the age-related disease sets in, copie of the gene have already been passed. In most speice of apes to which we are closely related, senility is the normal way of things, nearly all ageing apes get senile. Not so in humans: senility are some specific diseases, but lots of individuals age nicely without getting alzheimer's, parkinson's, etc. because then these ageing individuals can help taking care of their grand-kids, and again helping more copies of their genes survive (including the beneficial gene that help in late age) even if they are not anymore biologically able to pass themselves first-hand).
- That's saddly why we evolved "uncanny valley" (it also helps forming a genetic ground for xenophobia: if it looks almost like, but a little bit of what you've used to see while growing up, chances are that it comes from a different pack/tribe to which you aren't related to and is a competitor that you need to kill with fire).
(NOTE: I'm not condoning xenophobia in any way. I'm just giving explanation why we did evolve such a stupid behaviour and "uncanny valley" might be the mechanism supporting it. It only explain, not justify. We must understand these mechanism and adapt to the fact that modern highly mobile and interconnect civilisation has grown to the point where "pack/tribe" covers about a dozen billion individual spread on a whole planet surface, and we must all stick together if we want to have a chance at surviving as a specie at whole)
And countless other example of special behaviour in humans that might seem counter intuitive in the first place, but start to make sense once you look at them through the lens of small pack/tribes/extended families (situation in which we've spent most of our evolution time).
You can find other similar behaviour in other animals that live in groups, from cats (not very social animals, but still can live in colonies) all the way up to ants and bees (all these kind of behaviours turned up to eleven. to the point where only 1 single individual - the queen - actually passes here gene around actively, and every other last one in the colony is indirectly helping more copies of their genes indirectly by helping their siblings - which makes even more sense when your do the mendelian genetics maths on their peculiar reproductive cycle)
Your DNA cares. You serve largely to pass it on, and if the kid isn't yours, and you pick up on the clues, you're probably hardwired to reject the little mite.
On the other hand, if the kid isn't yours, chances are high (back in the pack/tribe era of human evolution) that it comes from another individual of the pack to which you're related. By raising the kid, you're still helping passing more copies of your genes around. You just happen not to be the actual individual who inserted these specific copies of the gene into your mate.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Actually, your DNA doesn't give a shit. It's an encoding of a bunch of molecules - don't think it cares too much about anything
Look up the word "metaphore" in wikipedia, it might help.
DNA has not high level volition on its own.
But group of gene which produce a trait or a behaviour that is more likely to help have more copies of the DNA in the next generation are, over time, more likely to proliferate in the general population.
(Darwinian genetics)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The unique traits that any single individual passes on are 50% diluted each successive generation, rendering them to hereditary noise within just a few hundred years. The general pool of humanity will produce a virtual double of you at regular intervals in case the environment calls for it as a survival advantage.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
yup.
it's the whole idea of Dawkins that we're slowly evolving from a situation were we animals are only vessels to help our DNA make sure there's more copy of it in the next generation,
to a situation where life helps evolve something much larger than the individuals: culture civilisation.
We evolved speech, we evolved passed knowledge (oral tradition and teaching).
We evolved writing, we evolved stored knowledge (litterature and reference).
We evolved communication, we evolved shared knowledge (internet and what some call "extelligence")
At that point, in the long term, what matters most is science and society. Not genetic traits.
Still in the meantime, we're animals carrying genes that evolved during million of years before the invention of the internet.
We're bound to carry some left-over instincts.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's all in the mouseover text, but we (should) know that here.
Ah you're knocking women up and giving the an unwanted surprise, just because you are thinking 'my genes'. How nasty.
You don't understand where this person is coming from. He is considering himself superior than other people, this is the quote from the same author:
I am the alpha male you dummy. It's OK if my wife carried, out of our 7 children, say 2 or 3 from other guys because I was too busy procreating 50 or more kids with other women.
Here is the link if you want to see his quote for yourself.
The first study is studying modern day cuckolding.
This new one is very clearly studying cuckolding over the past 4 centuries.
These are not really the same thing. And the differing results are not mutually exclusive.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
All these nerds fantasizing about banging the hot blonde MILF next door, and nobody points out that DNA sequencing was a labor-intensive, manual, thus *extremely* expensive process in 1970, and that technological growth reduced the human labor required per sequencing, thus making DNA paternity testing a viable option after 1990 by reducing the number of wage-labor hours paid out per sequencing (cost, thus price)?
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Doubt your wife is optimal, there are 20-year-old models with perfect SATs who are selling their eggs. Sperm donors, on the other hand, aren't paid much, so what quality of father are you really getting? Anyway you could get much more bang for your buck supporting older kids with demonstrated talent and fitness
Some ultra liberal people scoff at the idea that we should stick to certain core values in society. They even go so far as to question some pretty fundamentally held beliefs about murder and paedophilia.
I’m not one to dictate what people do. I think everything should be questioned, even if it’s “fundamentally held.” I don’t think that your values have to be “Christian.” (Christianity at large has some pretty messed up ideas.) And while I favor monogamy, in the general case, I think that stability in relationships is the basic value people would be advised to adhere to. (This is especially important among gay males who have a higher risk of sextually transmitted infection.) There are clear evolutionary and practical advantages.
It’s nice to see that there’s at least a persisting trend in society to stick to one sexual partner, evidenced by the low rate of “mystery father” children.
There's some truth to the notion that monogamous species are attracted to two types of mates: alpha, and provider. This is due to monogamy evolving only when two parents are needed to care for the offspring in order for it to survive. There's also evidence that the female in the monogamy will often attempt to be seeded by an alpha in secret. If her provider mate finds out he will abandon the nest. Yes, I'm mostly talking about birds. While humans have evolved monogamy as well, we have this pesky little thing called "a high level of consciousness". This makes it very difficult to throw around generalisations and make assumptions.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Actually try regularly to ignore the other 7.5b that live here currently. I try real hard - no success yet.
It's like getting a 20 year sentence for a crime you didn't commit.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Not sure I understand the depth question - It is sometimes enough to go very shallow in vagina and still manage to produce offspring so why is depth a problem here?
When you are unable to ignore the products of your imagination ... is that not delusional ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
"Metaphore" is not in Wikipedia. I assume it is an agent or bearer of a specified thing that has self-referential characteristics. Is that what you meant to convey?
Inquiring minds want to know. Well, at least, one does. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
At what price? And anyway, that's not the point. I'm not saying I want the best. I'm saying I don't have a problem with not being the biological father, especially considering my known flaws.
Eh, if that's the way he thinks that's his prerogative. Personally, I look around and see a whole lot of average and only very few exceptional specimens. Without proper genetic manipulation, the mind yet triumphs over the body, value-wise.
Teaching objectiveness and proper thought processes is valuable no matter the genes the child carries. I would have adopted as well, only my wife wanted to experience pregnancy and there actually aren't that many adoptable children in this country it seems.
Well, for severely minimal standards of "raising", as in "I didn't let the kid starve or go naked", it might. Otherwise, it's absurdly optimistic. If you meant "at some time in the past", sure. But as of recently, today and into the future? No. And of course there are many indirect monetary costs as well; choices made because one has children, rather than in the direct raising of a specific child. These can range from the house you buy and where you live (for instance, to control which school district the child(ren) are educated in) to the hours you work (because someone has to be there to supervise them over large parts of their lives) to what furniture and equipment you outfit your home with, to the vehicles you choose, and so on and so forth.
Not saying you can't raise a kid for 15k/year. Sure you can. But you almost certainly won't. Even if you think you are, it's probably just that other taxpayers are footing part of the bill for you.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
To whatever extent that observation is true, instinct (or idiocy) is all it can be. Because children in no sense confer immortality. They, and their offspring, aren't you, won't act like you, and after just a couple of generations, subsequent offspring will pretty much forget you even existed, or even if they are vaguely aware of it, simply won't care.
There are many rewards that may arise from parenting. Immortality isn't one of them. The illusion of immortality might be, though. If you are really careful not to think too clearly about it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Do you have slightly larger than medium size hands, too?
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I have, so far, not rejected my adopted child.
And if your argument is that adoption vs cuckolding is different because of consent, your DNA is far smarter and more sentient than mine.
A friend of mine was dating a woman who said to him one day, "I'm pregnant and it's yours." He said, "Yeah, well, I had a vasectomy years ago." And that was all she wrote.
I was talking about thinking deeply. FYI: thinking about sex is not the same as having sex, no matter how much or deeply you think about it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Actually, your DNA doesn't give a shit. It's an encoding of a bunch of molecules - don't think it cares too much about anything
One way to look at evolution is that we, as individuals, strive to get our DNA (actually the code on the DNA) into the next generation and so on. Another way is see the DNA as striving to get itself reproduced in the subsequent generations, and the individual is just a means to do this.
It's irrelevant how you look at it, though. It's the same process. You're just imputing volition on different parts of the mechanism.
(||) Nehmo (||)
Nope. I'm a guy. My Y chromosome is not going to get diluted to nothing after a few generations as long as those generations include males.
A female's mitochondrial DNA gets passed on unaltered. That could be more important.
(||) Nehmo (||)
The various links seem to define cuckoldry as a father raising a child that isn't his, but the study is measuring children who have a father that don't have the expected father. Common sense tells me that's not the "cuckoldry rate." Fathers can have more than one child, but children can't have more than one father. I mean if 1 in 100 children have this unexpected paternity, if a father has three children, wouldn't it seem likely that he has about a 3% chance of being a cuckold? Maybe the false paternity tends to cluster together such that if one kid isn't biologically the father's, it's likely the siblings are too, but I see no reason to think that.
The measure would be better called a false paternity rate or something similar, not a cuckold rate. Or am I missing something obvious?
Why the "alpha male" notion may be a bit simplistic, human groups do tend to fall into dominance hierarchies. We aren't chimps, but the way we organize our social groups isn't a hundred miles from how chimps function. Inevitably, all human organizations will follow similar patterns of leadership and deference, with one degree of competition or another from lower ranking individuals who think they deserve a spot at the big table, or even to be at the head of it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That said, the commentary that, in the general population, paternity is rarely an issue is correct.
But it could be a close relative. Also, CI is the confidence interval. And clustering effects can indicate in-family adoptions of underage children in terms of "your mom is actually your older sister and your mom is your grandma" or similar things.
Remember, the study with the lower percentage is from Belgium. Different regions of different countries have different rates. You can't really compare other countries or regions with yours, in terms of correctly identified parentage. This is well known in the community of researchers.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
We aren't chimps, but the way we organize our social groups isn't a hundred miles from how chimps function
We're also not a hundred miles from how bonobos organise themselves, yet oddly people seem to draw that comparison rather rarely. The thing is, er aren't chimps OR bonobos and drawing analogies from either of those is flawed.
Inevitably, all human organizations will follow similar patterns of leadership and deference
There's plenty of evidence that small hunter gatherer tribes formed more or less egalitarian groupings, so such heirachies are not inevitable.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You're right, of course. Heck, I don't even know the names of my great-great-grandparents, not to mention what they did in life or even where they lived. We pass down some information through the generations, but it gets severely diluted.
Of course, you can either see this as reason to be the best person that you can while you live, or as a reason to be a hedonistic self-centered shitlord. In a hundred years, all will be forgotten.
Eat the rich.
It will still be diluted and changed.
http://genetics.thetech.org/as...
Eat the rich.
as long as you remember to use the "effective means" of birth control. :)
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
with the inclusion of some populations where genetic paternity testing isn't an inexpensive and mature technology, which suggests that whatever difficulties exist in successful cuckolding aren't merely a product of DNA testing
Perhaps you should read the article?
The DNA tests are done on dead persons and their families going back a few hundred years.
In other words the "lineage" is on paper and the DNA tests test if that fits.
And that covers times where modern contraception did not exist.
Result of those tests: only 1 of about 100 children was not from the father on paper.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The personal issue with being a cuckold is that child is not yours and could be taken away from you. Adoption, while not perfect, gives legal rights in the matter.
If you have trouble understanding this, ask yourself why that many men who distrust their partners and have the testing done to confirm their suspicions are much higher than a random distribution. There isn't any question as to who the mother is when the child is born.
Actually all it proves is that around 1% were accepted into the families and lived long enough to have children themselves. Historically discovered extra marital children would have often resulted in the expulsion of the mother and the child, or worse
Well, that would be one of the parents... So, sure.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It's their lie, they can tell it any way they want!
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It will still be diluted and changed.
http://genetics.thetech.org/as...
From the link: A bit of recombination with the X, some recombination with itself, and a few uncaught errors makes for a slightly different Y.
My point still stands. My Y chromosome will not be diluted to nothing after a few generations.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
While many women would choose to adopt, especially if they cannot have children of their own many men will give serious consideration to changing their to one that is fertile rather than adopt or at least have a surrogate mother as they want the child's gene to be of their own.
Do you have any data to back up this assertion? Basically, you're implying that women are more likely to adopt regardless but men are more likely to want to pass on their genes.
But you're comparing infertile women with fertile men. Don't you think that infertile men would "choose to adopt," assuming that they are interested in raising children, just as infertile women would?
And do you really think that fertile women are more interested in raising other people's children than fertile men are? Women may be more likely to be willing to care for children in general, whether due to biological drives or cultural trends. But my experience with women is that they put a VERY high premium on having their own offspring where possible, which is why we see so many women today going for infertility treatments as the age of marriage goes up and more women are past the prime age to have kids.
Not to mention that almost every other day when there's an article on Slashdot about women and careers, someone brings up that female salaries are often lower because women end up taking a few years off to raise families -- and they do so while they are young so the kids can be their own. A 45-year-old or 50-year-old woman is generally perfectly capable of caring for an adopted child, but many women are very concerned about the "biological clock" issues and want to have their own kids earlier.
And I've personally known at least one situation where a woman broke up a marriage because of her husband's fertility issue -- only to remarry quickly and have kids with someone else. Not saying that this anecdote is proof of a trend, but I don't think there's as much truth to your sex-bias toward/away from adoption as you claim.
Don't project.
However, my personal experience with (maybe) ten or so women who were married to someone else is that I felt *much* safer ejaculating into them than with the single women I've been with.
Question: are these hypotheticals or are you actually bragging about your conquests on slashdot?
When commenting on an article about engineering stuff, if someone brings up their experience as an engineer to provide an additional data point, it's not considered bragging.
When commenting on an article about military stuff, I bring up my military background and those posts are also generally well-received.
But on an article about adultery, someone brings up their experiences with adultery, and those experiences are poorly received. Disbelief about the veracity of such statements, IMO, says more about the life experiences of the skeptics than it does about the poster making the claims.
The mind arises from the brain. The brain is part of the body.
When commenting on an article about military stuff, I bring up my military background and those posts are also generally well-received.
That's because being in the military isn't something braggable, it's a neutral fact. To many people, number of sexual partners is a braggable thing. For example, if you claimed to serve in the military, I'd believe you, because it's not an unreasonable thing to claim, lots of people have done it and so I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. If you claimed to be in some elite unit, I'd be rather more suspicious. If you claimed to be an F22 fighter pilot, your claims might come with a few truckloads of salt. If you wrote the navy-seal-copypasta, then I'd know you were a keyboard warrior.
See the difference?
I've known a lot of braggy guys who were full of shit in my years. For reasons that are pretty easy to follow, sexual conquests generally raise the bullshit flags really high.
Disbelief about the veracity of such statements, IMO, says more about the life experiences of the skeptics than it does about the poster making the claims.
If you believe everything you read on the internet, then you should be very worried because I can kill you in over 700 ways, and that's just with my bare hands...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Then after a couple more generations. Probably only one or two more, since it's exponential.
Eat the rich.
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D1u...
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Such bullshit. While your genetic makeup as a specific collection of genes is diluted, evolution happens on the level of individual genes -- and these are not diluted but diffused, as they exist elsewhere throughout the population. You are a reproductive vessel for each of your genes, not the particular combination that comprises you as an individual organism. This very much validates the genetic argument against being a cuckold, because your derived purpose is to propagate as much as possible the particular alleles you carry.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
most humans do cheat on a partners at least once at some point in life
Cite?
But barely evolutionary pressure for only the best genes to live on, so it all gets randomized.
Eat the rich.
I'll make a reply to you that's analogous to what I responded with to GP when I pointed out that there's no dilution in terms of the actual unit subject to evolution, which is not the organism but the individual gene (in the sense of Dawkins' "selfish gene"). You're both looking at things at the wrong scale, and thus your arguments are specious. You're considering ideas and values as a curated collection forming the individual's worldview/belief system/etc. But this is not what it's about. Individual ideas and values can continue to propagate far, far longer than any of the ephemeral collections thereof that comprise an individual's mind.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
As a collection encompassed in your mind, it will surely be forgotten; however, that's irrelevant, as in terms of individual ideas and values, you're but one of their multitudes of carriers, and you're doing your part in propagating them.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
As well as my father (obviously, that's who I got it from) and my paternal uncle, etc. At the risk of offending sensibilities, how do they correct for a relative cockolding, since they only look at the Y chromosome? And in a typical little village 400 years ago, there might only have been 5-10 or so unrelated Y chromosomes floating around.
Then after a couple more generations. Probably only one or two more, since it's exponential.
It's exponentially decreasing, not exponentially increasing. Much like the graph for capacitor discharge rate. From your previous link the half-life of the Y chromosome works out to around 500 generations in the shortest case.
Seriously, this is not contested science. The first page of googling for 'how far back does the y chromosome trace' reveals answers in the hundreds of thousands of years. It is ridiculous for you to maintain that the y chromosome will be diluted in a few generations when a quick trip to Wikipedia says otherwise.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Whether you believe that everyone descended from Adam and Eve (who was made from Adam's genetic material), and their children interbred for a thousand years, or two complex and exact duplicate mutations happened at the same time (within 30 years)
You make it sound like those are the only two options. By studying other animals, we're pretty confident that distinct species happen when 2 groups get separated via geography or other means until there is enough genetic variations that when they meet again that they can no longer reproduce. There was likely never just 2 humans but rather a collection of non-humans that we evolved from. I think the best scientific guess is that at our lowest point there were about 10k pre-humans that make up our genetic pool.
Perhaps technically that should not really be consider cuckolding though. If they are your genes, does it matter how they got there?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
More insults?
More than what?
Really?
Apparently so.
Well Done!
Thankyou!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Survival of the fittest isn't a thing anymore, everyone survives. This will eventually be the cause for humanity's downfall.
When commenting on an article about military stuff, I bring up my military background and those posts are also generally well-received.
That's because being in the military isn't something braggable, it's a neutral fact.
A lot of people would assert otherwise, starting with all those Stolen Valor idiots.
To many people, number of sexual partners is a braggable thing. For example, if you claimed to serve in the military, I'd believe you, because it's not an unreasonable thing to claim, lots of people have done it and so I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. If you claimed to be in some elite unit, I'd be rather more suspicious. If you claimed to be an F22 fighter pilot, your claims might come with a few truckloads of salt. If you wrote the navy-seal-copypasta, then I'd know you were a keyboard warrior.
See the difference?
I've known a lot of braggy guys who were full of shit in my years. For reasons that are pretty easy to follow, sexual conquests generally raise the bullshit flags really high.
I wouldn't call BS on an F-22 pilot or Spec Ops guy's claims until they demonstrated something factually incongruent. Depending on your own life experiences and those of your social circle, bagging ten married women can be low on the sliding scaling of potential bullshit. I can think of acquaintances who can make that claim and not get laughed out of the room, because they've demonstrated their skill as epic seducers in the past. But on the Internet, the BS flag gets thrown against sex-related life experiences almost immediately. Even for fairly low-level ones. And I find that strange.
A lot of people would assert otherwise, starting with all those Stolen Valor idiots.
OK, let me rephrase it. I've known a lot of military people for whom being in the military was not braggable, it was just a fact of life. I used to work at Los Alamos, so there were a LOT of ex military folk there. Also, when I was at uni, there were a small smattering of Americans in the military because that seems a good way to get an education.
Of those, a very small fraction (only one comes to mind) who was a raging lunatic, but I can't think of anyone who actually ever bragged about it to me.
I wouldn't call BS on an F-22 pilot or Spec Ops guy's claims until they demonstrated something factually incongruent.
Not sure if I'd call BS on them, and I might give them the benefit of the doubt but I'd be skeptical. There are very, very few spec op/F22 pilots, yet both of those are very cool-sounding. It's much easier to claim to be something impressive, rare and cool than it is to be something impressive, rare and cool, so I tend to be suspicious of people making such claims.
But on the Internet, the BS flag gets thrown against sex-related life experiences almost immediately. Even for fairly low-level ones. And I find that strange.
Unlike military people, almost exclusively when I've heard people talk about their sexual conquests it's been bragging. I say almost exclusively because there are rare exceptions.
Nonetheless when talk of sexual conquests comes up, the prior is massively on the side of "yeah right!". And ever the Bayesian, I listen to my priors.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In a lot of places, infertility is legal grounds for divorce.
Maybe adulterous women only bear daughters.