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Short Stuff: The History of Paternity Testing · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Dave. Be quiet, let's go. So we're talking about
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: paternity testing in the history of paternity testing, which is
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: amazing because it's all pretty new as far as really
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: being able to do paternity testing. Yeah, you and I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: grew up in a world where I mean pretty much
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: from the moment we realized that that would be an
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: issue that somebody would need to solve, it was pretty
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: much solved because if we we grew up in a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: world where you could genetically test for paternity like testing
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: markers on white blood cells and produced basically nine accurate
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: assessment of whether somebody was the father of a child
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: or not. Prior to us coming of age. In this
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: age of genetic paternity testing, however, it was a real problem, Chuck,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: like a longstanding problem. Apparently. Yeah. Should we talk about
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the story of Saint Anthony. I was hoping you'd ask
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: twelve century priests. Saint Anthony. At one point a woman
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: came to him and she said, you know what, my
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: jealous husband thinks that he's not the father. He thinks
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I stepped out and cuckolded him, and uh, he's threatening
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to kill me and this child. And so Anthony went
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to the family and said, I'm going to do a test.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It's called a paternity test. And he went to the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: little baby and said, who's your daddy, And the baby
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: pointed to the jealous husband, this is an infant and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: said that is my father. This is an infant. End
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of story. Um, so Saint Anthony said, and like left
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: as he was known to do, and became a saint
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: shortly after that, right at the end of this episode.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Now it's not the end because a very smart person
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: named Nara Milanich, who's a history professor at Barnard College,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: has authored a book called Paternity colon the Elusive Quest
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: for the Father where it really and Dave Rouse, our
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: old pal, wrote this article and um and did he
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: talk to Nera I believe so, Yeah, and even interviewed
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: her and she really got down on this topic of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of researching the history of paternity. And it's pretty interesting because, uh,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in the early days, like all early days of science,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and when there was a lot of pseudoscience going on,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: they were doing all kinds of wacky stuff. Yeah, because
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: again people were like, what are we what are we
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: gonna do. We have no idea how to prove how
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to prove paternity or disproved paternity, And there is a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people who really want an answer to this.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So because the need was so great, um quacks were
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: allowed to kind of fill the void for a little while,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: especially apparently in the nine twenties there was a um
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the nation was gripped in a panic that babies were
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: being switched and maternity wards and hospitals too. So it
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't just the idea that your wife stepped out on
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: your had an affair um with another man, and that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: this wasn't your child. Like men and women wanted to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: be able to prove a child was theirs, but there
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: was just no way to do that scientifically. So, like
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: you said, pseudo science said, hey, we'll try this for
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a little while. Yeah, And so a quack might step
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: in and say, we need to look at the roof
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: of the mouth, because uh, we want to determine if
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: they've eatn any Captain Crunch peanut butter cereal lately, but
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: just the flesh, bloody flush dangling from the roof of
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the mouth. No, they thought the ridges on the roof
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: of the mouth had patterns sort of like a fingerprint
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that were passed from father to child. Complete bunk. Yeah,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: but imagine that examle but that wasn't fun. I don't
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: know blockchaw anyone. Yeah, Like, how are they gonna see
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the roof of your mouth? Just gonna feel around or
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: maybe do an impression test? That does not sound pleasant.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: What someone sticking their fingers in the roof of your mouth? Yeah,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: and feeling it seems calming to me. What eugenics comes next? Uh?
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And that is like, hey, let's look at your let's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: measure your nose and ears and feel your hair, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: we'll determine that way if this is your father, and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: be really racist about it. Right. And then a dude
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: came along in the nies named Dr Albert Abrams and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: his ah, his bunk science machine, the oscilla four. Oh
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: nice pronunciation, Charles. So. Dr Abrams not only came up
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: with the oscilla four, I'm going to say it a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: different way, the acillaphor. Okay um, he came up with
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  Speaker 1: what the oscillophor measures, which makes the whole thing totally
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: made up. But he said that if you measure blood
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: with an ascile of four. Now I'm not gonna say
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it either way. Um, you will get what's called the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: electronic reactions of Abrams, which is a measure of the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: electrical movement or electrical vibrations in blood, and that the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: vibrations in the blood was related to your ethnic heritage.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: That's right. And if you're Irish, you're gonna vibrate your
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  Speaker 1: blood will at fifteen ohms to Jewish seven olms. Everybody
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: knows that, and on down the line. Uh. And so
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  Speaker 1: this was the only thing going at the time, So
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: judges turned to Abram's particular judge named Thomas Graham Uh
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco. He hired him to determine a very
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: high profile paternity case involving a guy named Paul Vittori
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: who was not good an wait a minute on behalf
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of all listeners, chuck, I'm sorry, that's how you're gonna say,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Paul victory, thank you. And he said, I'm not gonna
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: pay child support for my infant daughter. It's not my daughter.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So they brought in Abram's two court and they did
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  Speaker 1: the little blood vibration and said you are the father
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  Speaker 1: because your vibe, your blood is vibrating at the correct
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: uh rate. YEA and that was that, and everybody said
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: this is a gross miscarriage of justice, and the judges like,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: what else are you gonna do? We can't do anything
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  Speaker 1: like this is just as good a guess as any
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: But what's funny is this was in the nineteen twenties.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I believe right within a decade um, there would actually
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: be a scientific basis for testing blood to determine paternity
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: one way or the other. And Chuck, we're gonna talk
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: about that right after this message break, Chuck Kuld. That's
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a great set up, buddy, Thank you very much. So
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we we tease science finally coming into the picture, um,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and it came through with blood types. Basically, they figured
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: out that there was such thing as blood types, which,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: by the way, way we did a really great live
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: show on blood types before. That was a good way
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to see so um and my father in law shouted
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: out that I'm pregnant. That's right, yeah from the from
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the audience, Well we're testing my blood. Yeah we tested
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: blood on stage. Yeah and got he got bigger laughs
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: than I did the entire show. But anyway, Um, the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: fact that blood types were proven, somebody figured out that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: oh wait, you inherit your blood types from your parents,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: so we can go a pretty far away in ruling
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: somebody in or out is the possible father of a child. Yeah,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: not obviously, you're nine nine nine, But there are some
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: things we know. Um, if the baby has a B
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: blood type, and you know the mother has type A
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: blood type, then the father's got to have either B
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: or a B. And so they could really narrow down
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in a scientific way, like a hundred times more than
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: they ever could in the past. And this came like
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: really to the public. Four um, which is a phrase
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I just made up. During a Charlie Chaplin paternity case.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin, the beloved Charlie Chaplin, was sued for paternity
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: by his longtime assistant Joan Barry. Yeah, he had a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: knack for the young ladies and loving him and leaving him.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And Joan Barry was twenty three when Chaplin was fifty four,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and she said, this little baby Caroline is Charlie's daughter,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and um, I'm kind of tired of this pattern that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he's developed, of of getting young women pregnant and then
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: leaving them in the cold. So I'm going to take
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: him to court. And they took him to court, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: they used science and they showed that he was not
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the father of Caroline. Right, So that was it. Right now,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: now you'd think he'd be off the hook, And that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: would have been the case had that had this case
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: been tried ten fifteen years later. But instead the jury said, well, okay,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: he's not biologically the father, but because of his close
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: relationship with Joan, he is Caroline's father there for all
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: intentsive purposes. So we're you're still going to be allowed
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to sue him for child support. That's right. Of the
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: twelve person jury. There were eleven women and one man,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and they roundly said sorry, Charlie, right, and he just
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: sat there silently, Yeah, that's right, and walked into a wall. Yeah.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: His facial expression said it all though. So I think
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: what in nineteen fifty three, thirteen years later, California law said, actually,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: we're not going to decide this by jury like that.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: If if we take a scientific test and it shows
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: that someone's not the father, then they're not the father, right,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: We're just gonna leave it at that. And then after
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: California passed that law, other states said, you know, it's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: not a bad idea altogether. So we're gonna do that too,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and then the whole thing, just like we were saying,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: all of it just went to the wayside when they
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: figured out genetic testing first in the eighties, but then
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: by the nineties it had been developed enough and the
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: tests had become cheap enough that it was very much
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: widespread and used routinely and had completely supplanted blood typing
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: as the test paternity so much so, and it's gotten
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: so cheap that Maury Povich has an ongoing thing on
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: his moriy show, the Daytime Talk Show, where um yeah,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: he routinely tests and then reveals on air the results
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of paternity tests for guests and like plays it up.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: There's all sorts of drama, and apparently they have mugs
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and t shirts with the catchphrase you are not the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: father emblazoned on its high drama. And every every day
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Connie Chung gets up and looks herself in the mirror
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and she's like, I've got dignity enough for the both
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of us. I always forget they're married. Yeah, because the
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: things like the coffee mugs, I say you are not
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the father, It kind of distances the two in your mind.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: You got Povich that's right. So obviously it's like you said,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: it got so cheap that you can get these tests
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: now for around fifteen bucks or less, which is a
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: great deal. But then of course you gotta pay the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: lab fees. That's where they get you with that on
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: exactly over a hundred dollars to to get that lab tested.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Because you can you can go to your local drug store,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but that's not going to tell you anything. It's not
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: like a pregnancy test. No, No, you still have to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: have it read by a t leave reader. That's right. Um,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I think that's it, right, Chuck. Yeah, I've never taken
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a paternity test, nor have I hooray, hooray chuck um.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about fraternity testing in
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the history of it, go check out this article by
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Dave Rouse on how stuff Works. And since I said that,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that means it's the end of the short stuff Short
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: stuff because Stuff you Should Know is a production of
• 11:43
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• 11:46
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• 11:49
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