
With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce - anigbrowl
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/5975653/with-genetic-testing-i-gave-my-parents-the-gift-of-divorce-23andme/
======
Sanddancer
There are some serious facts missing in the story here. When were his parents
married? When was the half brother born? Was this a known fling? This was
definitely something traumatic that happened, but we are left way too hanging
for this to be an interesting story.

~~~
jobu
From the other article ([http://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/6107039/23andme-ancestry-
dna-tes...](http://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/6107039/23andme-ancestry-dna-
testing)):

 _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."_

~~~
toomuchtodo
So it wasn't honesty that was the problem, its was people's emotions.

~~~
hyperliner
More than emotions, it was that their lives were being affected in some form:
something else was being added to it that was not there when they decided to
enter into a relationship. Particularly for the mother, she basically entered
into a relationship without all the facts known. Maybe she would have decided
differently at the beginning.

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.

~~~
mbreese
> 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.

~~~
tjradcliffe
> So, let's not pretend that we know what is going on here.

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](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](http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/hymn_strain.html))

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
I would even say it was probably a stronger marriage than most since it lasted
at least a couple decades.

------
IvyMike
I've been wondering if any agency in the US government has been using DNA
databases to do "genetic triangulation"\--and if not, when they'll start.

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.

~~~
anigbrowl
DNA storage is a very tricky area ethically. You're dead right that even
spotty coverage is sufficient to make all sort of inference, while on the
other hand we have much more DNA from crime scenes than we have the resources
to process, and when we do process it it can lead to the exoneration of people
who were serving long sentences.

[http://hstlj.org/articles/concerns-associated-with-
expanding...](http://hstlj.org/articles/concerns-associated-with-expanding-
dna-databases/)

~~~
toyg
_> we have much more DNA from crime scenes than we have the resources to
process_

If it's just a matter of computational power for a given price, that problem
will easily be solved in a few years.

~~~
anigbrowl
Lacko f administrative will ont he part of police departments seems to be the
largest part of the problem, if stories of unprocessed rape kits by the
hundreds are anything to go by. Thankfully some states have committed to
clearing the backlog and not allowing it to build up again.

[http://www.endthebacklog.org/](http://www.endthebacklog.org/)

------
kbenson
Summary: 23andMe's genetic database may uncover shitty behavior of people
close to you that they would rather you not know about. They hide this behind
a checkbox asking you if you want to see info about possible close relatives,
but the author thinks there should be big flashing warnings that it might show
information you aren't ready for.

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/

~~~
the_af
Note that in this case, no shitty behavior was uncovered. I initially thought
this story was going to be about adultery, but it turns out it wasn't:

> _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._

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
No shitty behavior was uncovered? Hasn't anyone considered that Thomas was the
product of rape? Or any other thousands of possibilities which we have no idea
about.

~~~
the_af
After reading the second article, which gives more detail, I think that's
unlikely. Obviously we're missing information, but it's not stated anywhere
that there was foul play of any kind. You cannot just assume something
horrible happened _unless_ at least some kind of hint is given in the article.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
I didn't assume, I just was saying there are thousands of possibilities which
might have varying degrees of virtue.

------
credo
>>"My parents divorced. No one is talking to my dad. 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."

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.

~~~
anigbrowl
Perhaps he kept it as a secret all this time. Many people regard hiding such a
fundamental piece of information for such a long time as a breach of trust.
The interesting thing to me about the story is that a morally neutral
technology can lead to bitter disagreements by unexpectedly presenting a moral
dilemma.

~~~
sliverstorm
Morally neutral technology does this all the time. Human social interactions
are filled to the brim with lies of all kinds- falsehoods, fabrications, lies
by omission, etc. Technology is gradually stripping them away.

~~~
jacquesm
This is very nicely documented in an SF story about the ability to view the
past Asimov?.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past)

------
jacalata
Genetically it may be difficult to tell a grandfather from a half-brother, but
logically it seems like you could easily add some basic checks like "is dude A
more than x years older than dude B? No? Well lets rule grandfather out then".

------
abvdasker
I work for a major genetic research and diagnostics laboratory. This is what's
known in the biz as "incidental findings" and in a clinical setting is an
enormous no-no (not as big a deal in research).

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"

~~~
sliverstorm
_a bit weary of companies..._

It is "wary". Please. _Please._

~~~
Blahah
'weary' is perfectly valid. You're welcome. _You 're welcome_.

~~~
sliverstorm
Ok, you got me there, in this case it happened to be valid grammar. Though IMO
it was clear the writer meant "wary".

------
andrewtbham
I have a similar situation. I had a close cousin contact me on 23 and me that
I wasn't familar with. He is adopted and looking for his parents. My dad took
the test so we have narrowed it down. He recently found his mom, so I know
it's his dad that I'm related to. Bottom line, we still haven't figured out
who the dad is and I'm afraid to push it because it may cause an outcome like
this. I invited the adopted cousin to a family reunion but he declined.

~~~
w0rd-driven
Life is way to short to hide behind fear of the unknown. Think of yourself in
these shoes? Would you want to be held back by someone well meaning? I
personally wouldn't. I can't even begin to fathom what being estranged from
your parents feels like and I'm not about to ever get in the way of someone
trying to reconcile that if I have even the _slightest_ bit of information
that can help relieve that. It's not my place to deny them. If that brings
hell to my family, I would tell them to put their big boy/girl pants on and
grow the fuck up, full stop and I completely adore my family. This isn't a
decision they get to stop, stifle, or refute. Let the estranged cousin make
all the decisions. You're there to help empower them to do what they feel lead
to pursue, nothing more or less.

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.

------
TrainedMonkey
Genetic testing is a really cool concept. There is a parallel with the
internet, is that for every new person tested value of testing increases for
everyone. Sufficient number of people tested should allow us to identify
really subtle patterns in genetic code and will be a boon in healthcare and
family planning. For example a dating site, that takes genes into account
while matching people. Unfortunately there are huge privacy implications to
consider.

~~~
yodsanklai
It raises a lot of ethical questions. There was a great movie that touched
those issues: "Gattaca".

~~~
Barnabas
Gattaca was very prescient and thought-provoking movie, one of my favorites.
The story described a future where individuals are allowed or denied
opportunity based on a genetic test at birth. I think the point was that
technology cannot predict or limit the human heart.

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.

~~~
pmalynin
Well, Gattaca raises a bigger point that just "Should we discriminate based on
DNA?" In Gattaca, people can choose to genetically enhance their offspring to
attain certain qualities. The protagonist's parents chose to make him in a
"natural" way and hence he was considered to be the less extreme version of
Untermensch. The director chose to portray such policies / societal norms as
morally wrong (primarily through an emotional appeal). But it doesn't touch
upon the other side of this issue. How well did humanity perform after humans
were artificially evolved into what by some could be considered a new species.
Except a few discriminatory cases -- much less than say Women and other
minorities experience at the moment -- Gattaca doesn't seem too horrible, with
space ships and space colonization. The movie can be thought of as depicting a
Neanderthal that happens to be stuck in a Homo Sapiens Sapiens dominated
society, and after facing adversity -- eventually succeeds. I think the issue
is larger than that. Perhaps it's trying to make us consider the possible
collective benefits of Humankind as a whole if it were allowed to fast-track
its natural evolutionary processes. After all, if all humans became "Homo
Sapiens Sapiens Sapiens" wouldn't we be better off?

~~~
pgeorgi
People are still forced to work under threat of starvation, upper class people
still work in open plan offices, lower class people still handle dangerous
chemicals.

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)

------
discardorama
IMHO, genetic testing wasn't the cause of the divorce; it was the family's
intransigence at the dad wanting to get in touch with his long-lost son. What
kind of a people are these, that they'd want to kick the father out for
wanting to get in touch with a son he never knew he had, from before the
marriage?

~~~
icebraining
Or maybe a few paragraphs of text aren't really enough - or even intended - to
describe the full situation?

------
davidkclark
I wonder how many sperm or egg donors will register on 23andme and receive an
interesting email... Or how many children conceived in that way will find half
brothers and half sisters. I wonder if you could see traces of "prolific"
sperm donors via their related offspring...

~~~
moioci
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?pagewa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?pagewanted=all)
and [http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/01/24/more-children-
from-...](http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/01/24/more-children-from-sperm-
donors-seeking-out-genetic-family/)

------
ThrustVectoring
The genetic testing didn't cause the divorce, keeping secrets did.

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.

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
Keeping secrets isn't the problem here.

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.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _Whether secret or not, why should any woman want a man who has children by
> another woman?_

Are you trolling? Marrying someone with pre-existing children is so profoundly
non-scandalous that it was the premise for The Brady Bunch.

~~~
cpwright
Mr. or Mrs. Brady Bunch didn't hide the fact that they had previous children
or relationships. Its very possible that the father lied to the mother about
having the prior relationship. Its also possible that his previous behavior
had nothing to do with the divorce, and it was his current reaction.

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.

------
s-phi-nl
Relevant xkcd: [http://xkcd.com/830/](http://xkcd.com/830/)

"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."

~~~
deciplex
Who has college yearbook photos? I don't remember any yearbook, and it
certainly doesn't have my photograph in it. There were something like 25,000
undergrads anyway - how would that even work?

------
d357r0y3r
Somewhere, there's a product manager or developer coming to terms with the
fact that the decision to check that box by default tore at least one family
apart.

~~~
psykovsky
Funny enough, it was exactly the opposite. It was Opt-in, now it's Opt-out.

~~~
spacefight
Opt-out is really to blame here. Almost everything is opt-out in the US. Go
look at how the EU handles data/privacy sensitive stuff: most of the time,
it's opt-in.

------
geuis
This is confusing. "This is how it happened: when you share around 25 percent
genetic similarity with someone, that means that either it's your grandfather,
uncle, or half-sibling".

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?

~~~
lotharbot
You got 23 of your mother's 46 chromosomes, and your half-brother got a
different set of 23 of your mother's 46 chromosomes. On average 11.5 of those
chromosomes will be the exact same ones -- that's 25% of your total DNA.

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.

~~~
geuis
Ah that makes sense. I knew I was missing something but wasn't sure what.
Thanks.

------
fizixer
I'm amazed at people preferring living under a lie for the rest of their lives
and dying like that than finding out the truth in case it might be bitter. I
would trade a supernuclear family for truth any day of the week.

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.

~~~
hueving
>I would trade a supernuclear family over truth any day of the week.

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.

~~~
jacquesm
I have a hard time envisioning 'emotionally damaging truth'. More truth is
always better, even if it is uncomfortable. Operating on un-truths can be
damaging, truth should allow you to function better, not worse.

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.

------
bthomas
I've never understood the dynamic between 23andMe and the FDA. It's just
information - what's to stop someone from setting up the same service in
Bermuda? Would they really stop Americans from mailing a spit kit somewhere?

~~~
raverbashing
The issue with the FDA is saying "Since you have this gene your chance of X
disease is 5%" when there are other factors that influence this and this
hasn't been evaluated by a doctor.

And then people making decisions solely based on this number.

~~~
jonknee
It's because they're a bureaucracy and they are protecting their turf. They
call the spit kit a medical device and want to regulate it as such.

------
r00fus
I'm just trying to think about what would happen if those parents in the story
were me and my wife. Would we break apart? I'm guessing/hoping no, but the
real answer may be completely different.

------
nhoven
The rate of non-paternity is commonly quoted to be around 10%. If genetic
testing becomes more common, we're likely to see even more of these divorces.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattributed_paternity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattributed_paternity)

~~~
nhoven
To clarify, other estimates put misattributed paternity in the range of 1-4%,
but that's still a whole lot of marriages (especially considering that most
marriages have multiple kids).

------
analyst74
On one hand, I believe that people have the right to know the truth to things;
on the other hand, not many people are able to really handle the unpleasant
ones.

Sometimes I wonder, did forgetting/hiding of the hard truth caused the
inability to handle them? Or because of?

~~~
brixon
I just visited the site and their promo video at the top of the front page is
all about two sisters finding each other. You cannot fault this company for
finding unknown relatives. Hell, I know my dad was married/divorced before he
married my mom and I want to do this to see if anything pops up, but will
probably wait until the medical screen is available again.

Note: They currently do not offer the medical checks due to government audit
or something.

~~~
jrapdx3
The issue is health-related genetic information must be given to the
individual by a qualified genetic counselor. Informing an individual about
genetic health risks requires counselors with adequate training re: potential
outcomes associated with the genetic factors and ability to express these
facts and concepts in plain language.

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.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
Not only that but they also must prove that the services they are offering are
scientifically and medically sound and they aren't just making shit up.

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...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/i-had-my-dna-picture-
taken-with-varying-results.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

> 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.

------
Kamic
weird this article came out after buying pre-nov2013 kits off ebay so we can
see our health information....last night my wife and I just spit into our
23andme kits and we shipped it out this morning. Wish me luck on the truth! :)

~~~
rdrey
That's a great idea. I didn't know older kits were for sale. I'm 10x more
interested in the health information than my ancestry!

~~~
briandh
Also note that if you are not able to get such a kit (or even if you are) you
can download the raw text file from 23AndMe and run it through Promethease
from SNPedia. It is not nearly as clean and curated as 23AndMe but it's still
interesting.

~~~
rdrey
Thanks, yeah, that's pretty cool. I just watched a Youtube video on how to
export raw data from 23AndMe and search for things on SNPedia. As long as
23andMe keeps the export option around I won't be spending a lot more for a
kit from ebay. :D

------
dllthomas
_" We all know that genetically it's hard to distinguish a son from a
grandfather"_

Shouldn't that read, "a brother from a grandfather"?

------
joeevans1000
Don't hate the player, hate the game.

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.

------
graycat
There is an encouraging side to this agony: At least some of the people in
that family cared, really cared, about the issues of intimacy (that is, open
communications in the sense of _giving knowledge of themselves_ to each other,
as in E. Fromm, _The Art of Loving_ ), honesty, trust, fidelity, etc. This
fact is "encouraging" because now it is far too easy to conclude from various
circumstances, stories in the media and/or tabloid media, _the hookup
culture,_ etc. that in US culture these issues have been regarded as
meaningless, that any sexual behavior is no more _meaningful_ than, say, a
game of ping pong, that the standard marriage vows are just lines in a stage
play comedy/fantasy, that a couple stays together only so long as the
combination of money and sex are appropriate, etc.

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](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.

~~~
jacquesm
It feels as if you're just using the story to see your own preferences
confirmed. 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. It is also
possible the mom had several sex partners before the marriage and did not get
pregnant. It may not have been all that casual, relationships do end.

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.

~~~
graycat
> It feels as if you're just using the story to see your own preferences
> confirmed.

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.

~~~
Dylan16807
From the other comments you can see quotes from a version of the story showing
that there was almost certainly no adultery.

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.

~~~
graycat
Not everyone will agree with my preference for _traditional family values,_
which is fine. Still, I'm not following you:

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.

------
dguaraglia
This is a press release about how cool 23andme is, wrapped in a sorry story.

~~~
beering
Hardly. This is a story about how 23andme is a good way to find out things you
wish you'll never find out, and about how 23andme screwed up their find-your-
relatives feature and didn't seem to care about what happened to this poor
guy.

This is a story that makes you think twice about whether 23andme is a cool,
fun purchase/present.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Long time 23andme user here (one of the first genotyped customers). 23andme's
interface is extremely clear about what data is/will be made available to you,
and what the possible consequences are.

------
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

~~~
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.

------
raverbashing
That what happens when you put the algorithms in front of people.

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?

~~~
klodolph
I assume it's tracking chromosomes. Humans have 46 chromosomes, and each
chromosome is basically a copy of one from our parents, plus some mutations.
You can count the average rate of mutation per generation (which is very low,
something on the order of 100-200 total mutations in the entire genome), and
then count the differences between one chromosome and another chromosome. When
comparing genomes for two individuals, you'll get a low number of differences
for some chromosomes and a higher number of differences for others.

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.

~~~
Blahah
You're right about the relative similarity (and that's the key point), wrong
about the number of chromosomes being involved in the 25% calculation. It's
about the proportion of bases (letters in the sequence) that can differ
between two people that actually differ between these two people. See
mbreese's comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293159)

------
kolev
I'll be brutally honest - dishonest people will always pay for their
misbehavior. Lies and secrets always get uncovered. Smart people always think
decades ahead. Decades ago, it was clear that DNA testing will be daily
business, so, simply, you're gonna pay for doing things without thinking,
sorry. That's how it should be anyway. When you do genetic testing, you need
to be smart enough to understand what it could reveal to you - both positive
and negative. But, hey, let's sue and ban services like 23andMe just because
stupid people do stupid things! Like it's not a harm already to us already
that FDA removed health information (well, for new customers, at least) from
23andMe. What I cannot get is why health information is not allowed even for
new customers abroad who are not a subject of worries for FDA? Things like
this will force innovative companies in the field to move outside of highly
and insanely regulated United States where people, for example, remove their
breasts just because Angelina Jolie told them so! I am talking in general, not
about this specific article. All my family members have 23andMe testing during
the early days and still have access to the health information (although it
doesn't seem like it's being actively updated). There's
[http://www.snpedia.org/](http://www.snpedia.org/) and
[http://www.promethease.com/](http://www.promethease.com/) that kinda feel
that gap now. Anyway, I've go immense value out of 23andMe, found out a lot of
health information about me and my family and I'm afraid that stupidity of
some can lead to negative consequences in this area! In your personal life, at
least, be open and honest, it prevents cancer, and it makes you immune to
certain types of "discoveries"! It's that simple!

~~~
sdoowpilihp
If you read the article, you would know that this story does not come from
dishonest acts such as adultery, but instead a complex set of emotions playing
out between a family.

~~~
kolev
And did you read my comment? I'm talking about in general, not about this
particular story I don't really care about.

