This is a type of misattributed parentage experience (MPE) which can involve inaccurate assumptions made by an individual, their parents, or medical professionals.
An NPE may result from sperm donation, closed adoption, heteropaternal superfecundation, promiscuity, paternity fraud, sexual assault, or medical errors during the process of assisted reproduction such as mixups during procedures such as in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination.
[2] The term non-paternity event was first used in 2000 in a study of the surname "Skyes" and the Y-chromosome haplotype to denote if non-Skyes males had been introduced into the family line.
Such a breakage may occur because of formal or informal adoption, premarital or extramarital intercourse or rape; a woman raising a grandchild as her own to cover for her unwed daughter's pregnancy or when individuals use a different surname than their biological father, such as their mother's maiden name, a stepfather's name, the use of aliases or a legal name change.
Jones et al. (2010) said, "Characteristics of the markers and the fact that they are analyzed by fallible humans can result in inconsistencies that present problems for parentage analysis."
[13] Researchers have picked up on this phenomenon, and have sought to identify news outlets articulate how people discuss DTC GT.
Some of the relevant books include: It is difficult to accurately estimate the incidence of non-paternity events, and there have been large discrepancies in the research published on the topic.
Often, data on non-paternity rates are reported tangentially to the primary goal of research without sufficient detail, and very few studies involve randomized samples.
"[19] Turi King and Mark Jobling of the Department of Genetics at University of Leicester called the commonly cited 30% rate of non-paternity an "urban myth.
[21] The sociologist Michael Gilding concluded that inflated figures have been circulated by the media, the paternity testing industry, fathers' rights activists and evolutionary psychologists.