The cited article claims:

The most extensive and authoritative report…concluded that 2 percent of men with “high paternity confidence” — married men who had every reason to believe they were their children’s father — were, in fact, not biological parents.

The suppressed reference is to a meta-analysis by Anderson, appearing in Current Anthropology in 2006. The analyzed studies do not specify their samples as “married men who had every reason to believe they were their children’s father”. Moreover, the specification of the 2% statistic isn’t correct. A more comprehensive review of non-paternity statistics suggests that roughly 5% of children in high-income countries falsely identify their biological father.

The most extensive and authoritative report…concluded that 2 percent of men with “high paternity confidence” — married men who had every reason to believe they were their children’s father — were, in fact, not biological parents.

The suppressed reference is to a meta-analysis by Anderson, appearing in Current Anthropology in 2006. The analyzed studies do not specify their samples as “married men who had every reason to believe they were their children’s father”. Moreover, the specification of the 2% statistic isn’t correct. A more comprehensive review of non-paternity statistics suggests that roughly 5% of children in high-income countries falsely identify their biological father.

Anyone remotely aware of the existence of axiomatic libertarians can already have predicted their position and argument and already know what they think of that.

…says the Bayesian superman. Well, I think that your response to being shoved head-first into a wood chipper would be equally “predictable” and boring and “axiomatic”, Hanson. But the tedious predictability of your generic uniformative complaints (screams, unimaginative and repetitive shrieking, etc.) still doesn’t give anyone the right t\o turn you into Hanson puree.

Roissy +Hanson. The nerd will to power unleashed! (Make sure you wash your hands afterwards, though.)

Perhaps so, but only to the extent that people wrongly expect to be “better than average” in these respects. Arguably, overconfidence is a dangerous tendency which should not be encouraged.”

I don’t know about this. Even if the charges against you are true – that you are ugly, say, and you know this – your life is still made worse if people constantly tell you so, and you know about all the times people say so behind you back. I don’t think overconfidence is really the issue.

“Would the husband be bothered by this?”

But Grant, this is exactly the point I was trying to make – the husband (in my scenario) never finds out the child is not his! Of course if he was told and given proof, then he would be bothered (I assume). But I am thinking of the cases where he never knows. In that case is he harmed?

This is what I meant when I said the defence is either philosophical or empirical. You can either argue that even when the husband never knows the child is not his, he is still harmed (I see you have made an evolutionary argument in that direction), or you can argue that there won’t be many cases where everyone is made worse off by MPT. Or you could argue both, of course.

Perhaps so, but only to the extent that people wrongly expect to be “better than average” in these respects. Arguably, overconfidence is a dangerous tendency which should not be encouraged.

The issue of emotional harm to someone who discovers they’ve been cuckolded can be solved via insurance. If the child is yours, you lose some money but you also gain by knowing your status with certainty; otherwise you get compensated. There will be some issues due to imperfect information, but the overall result is that those who care enough about the issue will take the test, and everyone else won’t.

I do think that not allowing an “opt-out” from the test would be problematic, since many people will not want to know and that choice should be respected.

I would take great pleasure in knowing I just got away with infidelity and some poor sap is paying for my screw up. Wouldn’t you?????