
Public Health
The Electronic Paternity Test and Other Follies
A spate of “scientific” assays invented in the 1920s and 1930s were bogus—but they tell us a lot about the role of genetics in society, both then and now
Nara B. Milanich is a professor at Barnard College and the author of Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father, out June 10 from Harvard University Press.
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