One of the books I'm currently reading is Mapping Human History by Steve Olson. A few pages ago I ran across the statement that according to geneticists almost one in ten of us were fathered by someone other than the name on the birth certificate. If you're a first or a last child, the chance that it is you rises to 25%.
This seems like a perfect case of unintended consequences. Many of us are swabbing our cheeks and sending material off to be sequenced into the Human Genome Project. Scientists are hoping to identify genetic markers or causes to various diseases, characteristics and possibly behaviors. When there is a haploid difference we run into what is called the "non paternity event"; i.e., the genealogy we've recorded doesn't match the genetics in the lab.
Most of us are pretty certain who our mothers are. Most mothers are absolutely sure who are mothers are. It seems that the number of mothers who are absolutely certain who our fathers are may not be as high as we supposed.
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I have great admiration for those who have taught me and continue to (try to) teach me. Appropriate comments could be, "Duh!", "Wow!", "Do you really believe this?" and/or "This is very cool!"
Thanks for sharing!