So the author in the OP is that a scientific tool that yields the biological truth in paternity is a bad thing? The truth is anti-feminist? Ensuring informed consent for fathers is anti-feminist?
Fuck that noise
If we’re going to have men willing to raise the children of their female partners, said men should at least be able to do so in the face of the truth of the biolgical paternity f said children.
There is no causal relation between genetic fatherhood and social fatherhood, except the causal relation created by the rules of our (and almost all other) societies. If the rules had been different, the causal relationship would have been between different things. This is just a brute fact. It can’t be ignored in discussions like this.
So, you encounter a neighborhood where people have sex with others, but decisions about fatherhood are based solely on explicit promises made through particular ceremonial actions. Genetic parentage is not taken to be relevant to fatherhood in the slightest by these guys.
And you’ll tell them that what they’re doing is in some way literally, factually, wrong? That their notions of fatherhood are mistaken in some way?
You are saying “X is the fact, but someone in a position of special privilege prefers it to be Y, so Y it shall be.”
Here’s what you’re saying: “It is a fact that the other guy is the genetic father and this typically means the other guy would be the social father, but someone in a position of special privilege (namely the current acting father and mother) prefers it to be that this guy is the social father, so that’s how it will be.”
Have you answered the question about treating motherhood the same way, randomly once the baby has been born?
Yes, of course (as anyone should be able to tell from what I’ve said so far) I don’t think that there’s anything literally factually mistaken underlying a policy like “when women give birth their babies are given to the next woman in line for a baby.”
If some society can make this work, then that’s all there is to say about it. There’s nothing forcing anyone–nothing in physics, metaphysics, or logic–to assign the social role “parent” to the genetic ancestor of the child.
That “if some society can make this work” is a big if of course–I doubt one like what I just described could actually be made to work. But that’s fact of pure engineering. It has nothing to do with the nature of reality, or the logic of the social concept “parent” or anything like that.
Again: my claim is that you don’t get social parentage from genetic parentage for free. Additional assumptions–social rules for example–must always go into the mix in order to derive social parentage from some physical fact like social parentage.
None of which has anything whatsoever to do with the article linked in the OP. If the writer accepted this distinction between “social” parentage and actual-factual parentage, the existence of DNA testing would be as irrelevant to her argument as the existence of Kupier Belt objects bigger than Pluto.
As I noted above, the author bemoans the existence of improved determination of actual-factual parentage because she wants the matter decided by privileged power rather than by facts. She is unwilling to honestly argue for creating some legal fiction divorced from the actual facts, presumably because she knows that the notion would not fly.
That’s an encouraging sign. Argue though you will that one can construct a “social concept” arithmetic in which two plus two make five, you still know deep down that things just won’t work out unless it is accepted that they actually make four.
Traditionally The Spectator is a high-to-middlebrow political and literary magazine with a distinctly conservative (in British terms) slant. Maybe that article is meant as a parody, but it might also be the unholy product of miscegenation between radical feminism and conservativism, ideologies that do not generally mix well..
“Us” as people who need to know their family’s medical history, whether male or female, McD can kiss my left ovary.
If so, can’t they just assume that leftism is the father when radical feminism give birth to an idea?
No, it hasn’t. The only way you can claim that it is is by refusing to view male workers at the 10th industry as individuals, instead of just part of some male aggregate.
In short, your argument is founded on sexism.
The Women’s Lib movement always was pretty silly. No man should be required to support a child that is not his unless he wants to.
There are very, very strong constraints due to physics which make any model that doesn’t say two plus two is four a pretty useless model.
The constraints which make “genetic parenthood implies social parenthood” a working model are also strong–but not nearly as strong as the ones making ‘two pllus two is four’ a good working model.
True or false: There is no causal relation between genetic fatherhood and social fatherhood, except the causal relation created by the rules of our (and almost all other) societies. If the rules had been different, the causal relationship would have been between different things.
Don’t think about what you’re afraid the implications might be or anything like that. Just look at the paragraph, tell me whether taken as a whole the sentences in it are literally true or false.
They appear to me to be obvious truths. But not to you?
I was responding to a question that was asked of me.
The question was asked of me because I argued you don’t get social parentage from genetic parentage for free.
I argued for that viewpoint because the OP was saying otherwise.
The OP said otherwise because the OP thought this was relevant to the article.
I assumed the OP was right. Was the OP incorrect?
Obviously false.
If “our and almost all other societies” independently came up with the same relationship between genetic fatherhood and social fatherhood then there are only three possible explanations:
It’s is the result of a staggeringly unlikely probabilistic coincidence.
The two are linked via a third factor that influences both and causes the correlation.
One is caused by the other.
is just to stupid for words.
If you believe 2) then you really need to tell us what this third linking factor is.
And several posters have already shown you their reasoning for believing 3) is the case.
So the statement seems quite obviously incorrect.
This hasn’t been addressed yet but doesn’t the ability to solidly establish paternity actually help women in many cases? After all, just because a woman claimed Mr. X was the father of her child didn’t necessarily mean that Mr. X was going to support the child. At least with a paternity test she can determine who is obligated to support the child
Odesio
You’re telling me that if a society assigns social fatherhood based on something other than genetic fatherhood, then even in that society, the social father is still the genetic father.
That’s what you’re telling me, but is it what you mean to tell me?
I believe the author of the article would argue that it doesn’t really confer any advantage to women. A woman should be able to pick whoever she likes and obligate that person to support the child.
If the author had her way, Mr. X is on the hook for child support no matter what the test says.
Regards,
Shodan
No, that’s not what I am telling you.
I am telling you that where two factors are correlated in every single known case, then there must be either a a causative factor or a third factor that links the two. If you are arguing no causation, yet can’t produce the third factors, then all you have is an argument from ignorance.
Pretty basic logic.
You, on the other hand, are telling us that if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its arse on the ground when it hopped. That’s no sort of an argument.
Also, to answer your question more directly, I’m arguing for 2).
I’m saying tha the correlation between genetic fatherhood and social fatherhood (i.e. the fact that in general genetic fathers are more likely than others to be named social fathers) is best explained by reference to a third factor, namely, a complex of factors involving human psychology as determined by evolution.
Facts about the way human minds work and the way they typically interact-facts which themselves I suspect can be explained in evolutionary terms–lead to there being a general correlation between genetic and social fatherhood.
There’s no necessary connection between genetic and social fatherhood, and there’s no causal connection from one to the other. The correlation is to be explained as the result of social and psychological factors. And this means that should the social or psychological factors be different than is typical in any particular society or for any particular people, we shouldn’t expect to see the same correlation between g-fatherhood and s-fatherhood that we see in general.