[GandalfTheThird]

It's fantastic that, in this enlightened age, the simple fact that about 30% of people, across cultures, have wrong idea about their biological father, is still deeply suppressed.

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.

[trevorcreech]

Source? That seems absurdly high

[throwaway0010]

The source of the 30% statistic is from a selection-biased sample of people who undergo paternity testing because there is already a question as to who is the father. It's not an accurate figure.

The actual rate is likely somewhere between 1-3%.

More detail here: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2730/whos-your-dadd...

[clarkm]

Yeah, it's off by an order of magnitude. For most countries in Western Europe it's about 1%, sometimes less.

[smm2000]

Also it's significantly lower for people with college educated parents - majority of HN demographic.

[namenotrequired]

Other comments[1] in this thread seem to mention very different percentages. Is there a difference between what these numbers mean that I'm not aware of?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293282