A non-paternity event is a sit­u­a­tion whereby the bio­log­i­cal father of a child is “some­one other than who it is pre­sumed to be”. Typ­i­cally this involves some form of pater­nity fraud.

In one of the most gut-wrenching arti­cles I’ve read in months (due to the many human inter­est sto­ries in the arti­cle, no doubt), the sur­pris­ing inci­dence of non-paternity events, and reme­dies for how to com­bat the sit­u­a­tion, are dis­cussed:

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. Sev­eral stud­ies indi­cate that the rate appears to be far higher among unmar­ried fathers. […]

At a fed­er­ally con­vened sym­po­sium on the increase in pater­nity ques­tions, a room­ful of child-welfare researchers, legal experts, aca­d­e­mics and gov­ern­ment admin­is­tra­tors agreed that much pain could be avoided if pater­nity was accu­rately estab­lished in a baby’s first days. Sev­eral sug­gested that DNA pater­nity tests should be rou­tine at birth, or at least before every pater­nity acknowl­edg­ment is signed and every default order entered.

The same care that hos­pi­tals take ensur­ing that the right mother is con­nected to the right new­born — foot­prints, match­ing ID bands, guarded nurs­eries, sur­veil­lance cam­eras — should be taken to ver­ify that the right man is deemed father.

via Over­com­ing Bias (Robin Han­son, sug­gest­ing that manda­tory pater­nity test­ing at birth should be intro­duced, not­ing how many birth defects with an inci­dence of far less than 2% are rou­tinely tested for.)