So Baby Boomer: Life Tips: Unintended Consequences of Free Love

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Did 50-something Baby Boomers really march in all those peace rallies, groove to all those heavy rock concerts, smoke all that far-out dope and have all that wild "free love"?

Probably not.

A British study has discovered that Baby Boomers grossly embellish their flower-power experiences. Nine per cent said they'd claimed to have attended a "love-in" when, in fact, only one per cent admitted this was the truth. However, science today is proving that free love has unintended consequences. As genetic testing becomes more common, an uncomfortable side effect emerges: paternity surprises.

Genetics students, reports Steve Olsen, are commonly taught that 5% to 15% of the men on birth certificates aren't the biological parents of their children. Men pass their Y chromosome to their sons intact, so it is possible to trace fatherhood back many generations. As more people opt to have DNA tests to check for genetic diseases or to explore family history, the more geneticists are discovering false paternity assumptions.

"Any project that has more than 20 to 30 people in it is likely to have an 'oops' in it," says Bennett Greenspan, whose company, Family Tree DNA, traces ancestral links. The rate of nonpaternity can vary from community to community. Mr. Olsen reports that an unpublished study of blood groups in a British town found that around 30% of the town's husbands weren't the fathers of their children.

Such revelations are likely to increase as medical advances and cheaper technology allow doctors to determine patients' susceptibility to certain diseases through a scan of their DNA. Genetic counselors, who work with parents of children with birth defects, generally inform the couple of the DNA results. In such cases, most counselors tell the mother, but not the father--a practice a vocal minority within the trade disputes.

Sources: THE ATLANTIC, July/August and The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2007

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