1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,840 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren 2 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:13,319 Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. According to legend, the twelfth century priest Saint 3 00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:16,840 Speaker 1: Anthony was once approached by a distraught woman whose jealous 4 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:20,400 Speaker 1: husband was convinced that their newborn baby wasn't his and 5 00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:24,599 Speaker 1: had threatened to kill them both. When Anthony visited the family, 6 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:27,800 Speaker 1: he turned to the infant and said, tell me, child, 7 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:31,880 Speaker 1: who is your father. Miraculously, the baby pointed toward the 8 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:35,680 Speaker 1: jealous husband calmly replied that is my father, and they 9 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:41,800 Speaker 1: all lived happily ever after. So yes, a questions and 10 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:45,239 Speaker 1: drama about paternity go a long way back before daytime 11 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:48,120 Speaker 1: talk shows like Maury, though as far as we know, 12 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:51,479 Speaker 1: Saint Anthony never sold mugs or t shirts emblazoned with 13 00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: the catchphrase you are not the father. Until the advent 14 00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:59,640 Speaker 1: of accurate DNA testing in the nineteen eighties, there was 15 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:02,640 Speaker 1: no way to be one hundred percent certain of who 16 00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:06,880 Speaker 1: a child's biological father was, but that didn't stop people 17 00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:12,960 Speaker 1: from trying. Nineteenth and twentieth century scientists and pseudoscientists were 18 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:16,840 Speaker 1: obsessed with unlocking the mystery of paternity and tried just 19 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:21,479 Speaker 1: about everything to discover the holy grail of heredity. Meanwhile, 20 00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:26,520 Speaker 1: newspapers fueled the paternity test frenzy by closely covering sordid 21 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:31,680 Speaker 1: stories of cuckolded husbands, lecherous celebrities, and their disputed progeny. 22 00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:36,280 Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties, for example, there was a rash 23 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,639 Speaker 1: of anxiety in the United States over babies allegedly being 24 00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:43,640 Speaker 1: swapped in hospital maternity wards. Judges were put in the 25 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:46,880 Speaker 1: Solomon like position of having to decide who these babies 26 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:50,960 Speaker 1: legitimate parents were, and people were desperate for an objective 27 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:53,840 Speaker 1: test that could solve paternity suits once and for all. 28 00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:58,840 Speaker 1: Some researchers insisted that the ridges on the roof of 29 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: the mouth contained patterns that were passed from father to child. 30 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:07,200 Speaker 1: Others relied on the racist pseudoscience of eugenics to create 31 00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:10,560 Speaker 1: a list of physical traits like nose size, ear shape, 32 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:14,160 Speaker 1: and hair texture that they claimed passed from generation to generation. 33 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:19,680 Speaker 1: But the man who really captured the popular scientific imagination 34 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:24,160 Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties was doctor Albert Abrams and his acillophore. 35 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:29,880 Speaker 1: Abrams had developed theories about the human body's electrical system, 36 00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:34,280 Speaker 1: which he called the electronic reactions of Abrams or Ra, 37 00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:38,800 Speaker 1: convinced like many others, that the key to unlocking heredity 38 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:42,280 Speaker 1: was in the blood, he invented a preposterous looking instrument 39 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:46,840 Speaker 1: called an acillophore that purported to measure the precise electronic 40 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:51,200 Speaker 1: vibrations in drops of blood based on heredity of Irish 41 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:54,560 Speaker 1: blood vibrated at fifteen olms of Jewish blood at seven oms, 42 00:02:54,639 --> 00:03:00,400 Speaker 1: et cetera. Despite these suspect and racialized science behind the 43 00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:04,280 Speaker 1: ausillophor one, Judge Thomas Graham of the Superior Court of 44 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:07,640 Speaker 1: San Francisco hired Abrams to determine the outcome of a 45 00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:11,400 Speaker 1: high profile paternity suit involving a man named Paul Vittori 46 00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:14,160 Speaker 1: who refused to pay child support for an infant daughter 47 00:03:14,320 --> 00:03:19,560 Speaker 1: that he claimed wasn't his. Abram's magical machine found that 48 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:24,160 Speaker 1: Vittori was indeed the father, instantly making the eccentric doctor 49 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:29,000 Speaker 1: one of the most in demand paternity experts in the world. 50 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:32,839 Speaker 1: For the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works. 51 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:36,280 Speaker 1: Spoke with Nara Millinitch back in twenty nineteen. She's a 52 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:40,040 Speaker 1: history professor at Barnard College an author of the book Paternity, 53 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:44,040 Speaker 1: The Elusive Quest for the Father. She said, if we 54 00:03:44,120 --> 00:03:47,480 Speaker 1: can agree that an electronic blood test is crazy and 55 00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:50,680 Speaker 1: that this invention is ludicrous. Why did it get so 56 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 1: much press and why did a California judge think this 57 00:03:54,200 --> 00:04:00,400 Speaker 1: was useful technology? Milanitch believes the answer to why like 58 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:04,000 Speaker 1: abrams got so much traction is because a frustrated legal 59 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:09,880 Speaker 1: system wanted scientific panacea for solving the paternity problem. Also, 60 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:13,880 Speaker 1: American society in the nineteen twenties was grappling with anxieties 61 00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:17,120 Speaker 1: over rapidly changing gender roles in a new culture of 62 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:22,440 Speaker 1: feminine sexual independence. These tests, as inaccurate as they actually were, 63 00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:28,480 Speaker 1: offered the air of assurance. But what's even more remarkable 64 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:32,760 Speaker 1: is what happened next, because in the nineteen thirties, scientists 65 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,840 Speaker 1: discovered that human blood really did contain some definitive clues 66 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:41,640 Speaker 1: to a person's parentage. It wasn't electronic vibrations, but blood grouping, 67 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,760 Speaker 1: or what we now know as blood typing a b 68 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:51,080 Speaker 1: ABO and positive and negative versions of each A. Blood 69 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:55,640 Speaker 1: grouping follows some immutable rules. For example, if a baby 70 00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:58,520 Speaker 1: has Type A B blood and his mother has Type 71 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:04,160 Speaker 1: A blood, then the father must have bee or baby blood. Finally, 72 00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:07,200 Speaker 1: judges could use actual science to determine if a man 73 00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:12,039 Speaker 1: could realistically be a child's father, but even science, it 74 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:18,040 Speaker 1: turns out, has limitations. In the nineteen forties, famed entertainer 75 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:21,120 Speaker 1: and womanizer Charlie Chaplin was taken to court in a 76 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:25,520 Speaker 1: paternity case brought by his former protege Joan Berry. Barry 77 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:28,120 Speaker 1: was twenty three years old and Chaplain fifty four at 78 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:30,640 Speaker 1: the time, and she alleged that he was the father 79 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,839 Speaker 1: of her newborn baby, named Carol Anne. The court case, 80 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:38,680 Speaker 1: deliriously covered in the papers, featured the first high profile 81 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:42,520 Speaker 1: use of blood group testing in a paternity suit, and 82 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:46,000 Speaker 1: when the results came in, they conclusively showed that Chaplain 83 00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:49,520 Speaker 1: could not be the father of Carol Anne. The case 84 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:54,920 Speaker 1: closed right, science wins the day. Not so fast. The jury, 85 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:58,240 Speaker 1: composed of eleven women and one man, found that Chaplain 86 00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:02,680 Speaker 1: was indeed Carol Anne's father, if not biologically, then by 87 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:05,680 Speaker 1: the merit of his close relationship with her mother and 88 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:09,520 Speaker 1: his infamous history of marrying and quickly discarding much younger women. 89 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:15,080 Speaker 1: Despite the real progress made in paternity science, the problem 90 00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:21,239 Speaker 1: of paternity hadn't gotten less complicated. Milinich said. The problem 91 00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:24,120 Speaker 1: with the Chaplain's suit wasn't with the test. It was 92 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:27,599 Speaker 1: that people have different definitions of the father, the one 93 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:31,359 Speaker 1: that's biological and one that's social. We've asked science to 94 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:36,559 Speaker 1: solve something that isn't scientific. Going back to ancient Rome, 95 00:06:36,839 --> 00:06:40,000 Speaker 1: a husband was legally considered the father of his wife's children, 96 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:43,800 Speaker 1: no matter their paternity. This legal principle is still the 97 00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:47,520 Speaker 1: law in many US jurisdictions. A husband may still owe 98 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:49,840 Speaker 1: child support to a child he raised, even if a 99 00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:54,760 Speaker 1: paternity test says he's not the real dad. However, California 100 00:06:54,839 --> 00:06:58,160 Speaker 1: law was changed in nineteen fifty three to basically say 101 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:00,279 Speaker 1: that if a test showed that a man was the 102 00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:03,600 Speaker 1: father of a child, then the matter would be considered resolved, 103 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:08,599 Speaker 1: and other states have followed suit. DNA paternity tests, which 104 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:11,280 Speaker 1: went mainstream in the nineteen nineties, have taken all of 105 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:13,480 Speaker 1: the guests work out of determining the identity of a 106 00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:18,040 Speaker 1: biological father. They're now something like ninety nine point nine 107 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:21,200 Speaker 1: nine percent accurate if done right, and can be bought 108 00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:23,400 Speaker 1: for around one hundred bucks at your local drug store 109 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:28,960 Speaker 1: or online, or even conducted in a mobile DNA testing van. But, 110 00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:32,600 Speaker 1: as Milinich argued in her book, even the perfect paternity 111 00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:37,200 Speaker 1: test leaves a lot of questions unanswered. She said, who, 112 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:40,800 Speaker 1: as a society do we want fathers to be? That's 113 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:49,080 Speaker 1: not something a geneticist can solve. Today's episode is based 114 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:51,720 Speaker 1: on the article Who's Your Daddy? The History of paternity 115 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:54,480 Speaker 1: testing on how stuffworks dot com, written by Dave Ruse. 116 00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:57,320 Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with 117 00:07:57,320 --> 00:07:59,800 Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang. 118 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:03,520 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 119 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:06,440 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.