1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,560 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:10,520 Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. According to legend, the twelfth 3 00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:13,440 Speaker 1: century priest Saint Anthony was once approached by a distraught 4 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:16,520 Speaker 1: woman whose jealous husband was convinced that their newborn baby 5 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:19,239 Speaker 1: wasn't his, who had Britain to kill them both. When 6 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:22,279 Speaker 1: Anthony visited the family, he turned to the infant and said, 7 00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:26,040 Speaker 1: tell me, child, who is your father. Miraculously, the baby 8 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:29,440 Speaker 1: pointed towards the jealous husband calmly replied that is my father, 9 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:33,640 Speaker 1: and they lived happily ever after. You only need to 10 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:35,720 Speaker 1: turn on daytime TV for a couple of minutes to 11 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,560 Speaker 1: know that not all paternity tests deliver such welcome news. 12 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,400 Speaker 1: The daytime talk show Maury is so famous for its 13 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:44,400 Speaker 1: high drama paternity test plot lines that it sells mugs 14 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:47,120 Speaker 1: and t shirts emblazoned with the catchphrase you are not 15 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:51,960 Speaker 1: the father. While maternity has always been taken for granted 16 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:55,840 Speaker 1: for most of history, paternity was an open question. Until 17 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:58,760 Speaker 1: the advent of super accurate DNA testing in the nineteen eighties, 18 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,400 Speaker 1: there was no way to be scientifically certain who a 19 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:05,480 Speaker 1: baby's biological father was, but that didn't stop people from trying. 20 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,400 Speaker 1: But we spoke with Nara Milanich, history professor at Barnard 21 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:12,120 Speaker 1: College and author of the new book Paternity, The Elusive 22 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,520 Speaker 1: Quest for the Father. She says that nineteenth and twentieth 23 00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:19,360 Speaker 1: century scientists and pseudoscientists were obsessed with unlocking the mystery 24 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:22,320 Speaker 1: of paternity and tried just about everything to discover the 25 00:01:22,360 --> 00:01:26,400 Speaker 1: holy grail of heredity. Meanwhile, newspapers of the time fueled 26 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:29,800 Speaker 1: the paternity test frenzy by closely covering sordid stories of 27 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:34,399 Speaker 1: cuckolded husbands and lecturist celebrities and their disputed progeny. In 28 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:36,600 Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, for example, there was a rash of 29 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:39,840 Speaker 1: anxiety in the United States over babies allegedly being swapped 30 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:43,080 Speaker 1: in hospital maternity wards. Judges were put in the Solomon 31 00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:46,000 Speaker 1: like position of having to decide who these babies legitimate 32 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:48,680 Speaker 1: parents were, and they were desperate for an objective test 33 00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:52,000 Speaker 1: that could solve paternity suits once and for all. Some 34 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:54,400 Speaker 1: researchers insisted that the ridges on the roof of the 35 00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:57,720 Speaker 1: mouth contained patterns that were passed on from father to child. 36 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:01,560 Speaker 1: Others relied on the race by pseudoscience of eugenics to 37 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:04,520 Speaker 1: create a list of physical traits like no size, ear shape, 38 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:08,519 Speaker 1: and hair texture that supposedly invariably passed from generation to generation. 39 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,440 Speaker 1: But the man who really captured the popular scientific imagination 40 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:15,280 Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties was Dr Albert Abrams and his 41 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:18,560 Speaker 1: A syllophorre. Abrams developed a set of theories about the 42 00:02:18,639 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 1: human body's electrical system, which he called the Electronic Reactions 43 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:26,040 Speaker 1: of Abrams or e. R A. Convinced like many others, 44 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:28,400 Speaker 1: that the key to unlocking heredity was in the blood, 45 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:31,760 Speaker 1: he invented an instrument called and a syllaphore that purported 46 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: to measure the precise electronic vibrations in drops of blood. 47 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:38,919 Speaker 1: He said Irish blood vibrated at fifteen ohms, for example, 48 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,760 Speaker 1: and Jewish blood at seven ohms. Despite the suspect and 49 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:46,200 Speaker 1: racialized science behind the syllaphorre, Judge Thomas Graham of the 50 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:49,360 Speaker 1: Superior Court of San Francisco hired Abrams to determine the 51 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:52,880 Speaker 1: outcome of a high profile paternity suit involving one Paul 52 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:55,200 Speaker 1: of a Tory who refused to pay child support for 53 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,720 Speaker 1: an infant daughter he claimed was not his. Abram's machine 54 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,160 Speaker 1: found that the Tori was in deed the father, and 55 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:03,920 Speaker 1: the case instantly made the eccentric doctor one of the 56 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:08,440 Speaker 1: most in demand paternity experts in the world. Paternity quacks 57 00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:11,680 Speaker 1: like Abraham's got so much traction, Melaniche believes because a 58 00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:15,440 Speaker 1: frustrated legal system wanted a scientific panacea for solving the 59 00:03:15,520 --> 00:03:19,400 Speaker 1: paternity problem. Also, American society in the nineteen twenties was 60 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:22,880 Speaker 1: grappling with anxieties over rapidly changing gender roles and the 61 00:03:22,919 --> 00:03:27,079 Speaker 1: newly public sexual independence of women. These tests, as inaccurate 62 00:03:27,080 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: as they actually were, offered the air of calm assurance. 63 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,359 Speaker 1: But what's even more remarkable is that in the nineteen thirties, 64 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:38,000 Speaker 1: scientists discovered that human blood really did contain some definitive 65 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,400 Speaker 1: clues to a person's parentage. It wasn't electronic vibrations, but 66 00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:44,320 Speaker 1: blood grouping, or what we now know as blood typing 67 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:49,800 Speaker 1: A B, A, B, O, etcetera. Blood grouping follows some 68 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:53,240 Speaker 1: immutable rules. For example, if a baby has type A 69 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:55,800 Speaker 1: B blood and his mother has type A blood, then 70 00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:59,480 Speaker 1: the father must have B or A B blood. Finally, 71 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:02,200 Speaker 1: judges use actual science to determine if a man could 72 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:06,040 Speaker 1: realistically be a child's father. But even science, of course, 73 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:10,520 Speaker 1: has limitations. In the early nineteen forties, famed entertainer and 74 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:13,480 Speaker 1: womanizer Charlie Chaplin was taken to court in a paternity 75 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,320 Speaker 1: case brought by his former protege, Joan Barry. Barry was 76 00:04:17,320 --> 00:04:20,240 Speaker 1: twenty three and Chaplain fifty four, and she alleged that 77 00:04:20,279 --> 00:04:22,800 Speaker 1: he was the father of her newborn baby, Carol Anne. 78 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:26,040 Speaker 1: The court case, deliriously covered in the papers, featured the 79 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:28,599 Speaker 1: first high profile use of blood group testing in a 80 00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:32,120 Speaker 1: paternity suit, and when the results came in, they conclusively 81 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:35,320 Speaker 1: showed that Chaplain could not be the father of Carol Anne. 82 00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:39,240 Speaker 1: Case closed right Not so fast, the jury found that 83 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:43,080 Speaker 1: Chaplin was indeed Carol Anne's father, if not biologically, then 84 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:45,840 Speaker 1: by merit of his close relationship with her mother and 85 00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:49,240 Speaker 1: his infamous history of marrying and quickly discarding much younger women. 86 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,080 Speaker 1: Despite the real progress made in paternity science, the problem 87 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:57,320 Speaker 1: of paternity had somehow managed to get more complicated. Melanich said, 88 00:04:57,720 --> 00:04:59,880 Speaker 1: the problem with the Chaplain suit wasn't with the test. 89 00:05:00,279 --> 00:05:02,640 Speaker 1: It was that people have different definitions of the father, 90 00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:06,440 Speaker 1: one that's biological and one that's social. We've asked science 91 00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:10,560 Speaker 1: to solve something that isn't scientific. In ancient Rome, a 92 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:13,200 Speaker 1: husband was legally considered the father of his wife's children 93 00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:16,400 Speaker 1: that no matter their paternity. This legal principle is still 94 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:19,680 Speaker 1: law in many U s. Jurisdictions. A husband may still 95 00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:22,080 Speaker 1: owe child support to a child he raised, even if 96 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:26,000 Speaker 1: a paternity test says he's not the real dad. A 97 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:29,200 Speaker 1: decade after the Chaplain case, in nineteen fifty three, California 98 00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:31,600 Speaker 1: law was changed to basically say that if a paternity 99 00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:33,520 Speaker 1: test showed that a man was not the father of 100 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:36,640 Speaker 1: a child, then the matter would be considered resolved. Other 101 00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:41,360 Speaker 1: states followed suit. Meanwhile, DNA paternity tests, which went mainstream 102 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:43,560 Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, have taken all the guests work 103 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:47,520 Speaker 1: out of determining the identity of the biological father. Milanich 104 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:49,839 Speaker 1: says that they are ninety nine point nine nine percent 105 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:52,320 Speaker 1: accurate if done right, and can now be bought for 106 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:55,120 Speaker 1: around fourteen dollars at your local drug store or online, 107 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:58,000 Speaker 1: a plus a one thirty lab fee for running the test. 108 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:00,800 Speaker 1: There are even mobile DNA test sting bands where the 109 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:04,280 Speaker 1: full testing can be conducted. But, as Melanich argues in 110 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:06,919 Speaker 1: her book, even the perfect paternity test leaves a lot 111 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:10,320 Speaker 1: of questions unanswered. Quote, who, as a society do we 112 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,800 Speaker 1: want fathers to be? That's not something a geneticist consult. 113 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:21,560 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by 114 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:24,040 Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart 115 00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:26,279 Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots 116 00:06:26,279 --> 00:06:28,400 Speaker 1: of other topics that can be defined in multiple ways 117 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:31,240 Speaker 1: based on science and culture, visit our home planet, how 118 00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:33,839 Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts from my 119 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:36,840 Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit thy heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 120 00:06:36,839 --> 00:06:38,480 Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.