Text 2

阅读2

It is a wise father that knows his own child, but today a man can boost his paternal (fatherly) wisdom - or at least confirm that he's the kid's dad.

俗话说，贤父知己子，但是如今男人可以提升自己做父亲的智慧，或者至少可以确认自己是孩子的父亲了。

All he needs to do is shell our $30 for paternity testing kit (PTK) at his local drugstore - and another $120 to get the results.

他所要做的就是在住所附近的药店里付30美元买一个父子关系测试包(PTK)，然后另支付 120美元以获得结果。

More than 60, 000 people have purchased the PTKs since they first become available without prescriptions last years, according to Doug Fog, chief operating officer of Identigene, which makes the over-the-counter kits.

道格·福格是 Identigene(生产在药店可以出售的测试包的公司)的首席运营官，他指出自从去年 PTK 无需处方就可以买到以来，购买者已经超过 6万人。

More than two dozen companies sell DNA tests Directly to the public , ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to more than $2500.

超过24家公司直接向公众出售 DNA 检测工具，价格从几百美元到 2500多美元不等。

Among the most popular: paternity and kinship testing , which adopted children can use to find their biological relatives and families can use to track down kids put up for adoption.

最受欢迎的 DNA 测试是父子和血缘关系检测，被收养的孩子可以利用它找到自己的血缘亲属，家庭也可以用它追踪到被收养的孩子。

DNA testing is also the latest rage among passionate genealogists-and supports businesses that offer to search for a family's geographic roots .

最近DNA 检测受到许多热情的族谱学家追捧，同时还为那些家族寻根服务公司提供了支持。

Most tests require collecting cells by webbing saliva in the mouth and sending it to the company for testing.

大多数的测试需要从唾液中提取细胞，将其送至公司进行检测。

All tests require a potential candidate with whom to compare DNA.

所有的测试都需要另外一个相关人员的 DNA 进行比对。

But some observers are skeptical.

但是观察家们持怀疑态度。

"There is a kind of false precision being hawked by people claiming they are doing ancestry testing, " says Trey Duster, a New York University sociologist.

纽约州立大学的社会学家特洛伊·达斯特说，"那些声称可以进行血统检测的人，他们兜售的测试有一定的不准确性。"

He notes that each individual has many ancestors-numbering in the hundreds just a few centuries back.

他注意到每个人都有许多祖先，仅几个世纪以前就有几百个之多。

Yet most ancestry testing only considers a single lineage, either the Y chromosome inherited through men in a father's line or mitochondrial DNA, which a passed down only from mothers.

但是多数血统检测只考虑某个单一系统，或者是遗传自父亲的 Y 染色体，或者是只由母亲遗传的线粒体 DNA。

This DNA can reveal genetic information about only one or two ancestors,

这个 DNA 只揭示了一两个祖先的基因信息。

even though, for example, just three generations back people also have six other great-grandparents or, four generations back, 14 other great-great-grandparents.

但是例如：仅仅3代之前除了曾祖父母，他们还有 6个外曾祖父母，或者 4 代以前除了曾曾祖父母，他们还有 14个外曾曾祖父母。

Critics also argue that commercial genetic testing is only as good as the reference collections to which a sample is compared.

批评家们还争论说商业性基因检测的好坏取决于参照基因数据库的好坏。参照基因数据库是用来同样本进行对比的。

Databases used by some companies don't rely on data collected systematically but rather lump together information from different research projects.

一些公司数据库里的数据并非系统性的采集取得的，而是将不同研究项目的信息胡乱搜集在一起。

This means that a DNA database may have a lot of data from some regions and not others, so a person's test result may differ depending on the company that processes the results.

这意味某个DNA数据库可能包含某些地区很多的信息，却没有别的地区的信息。所以一个人的测试结果会随着测试公司的不同而不同。

In addition, the computer programs a company uses to estimate relationships may be patented and not subject to peer review or outside evaluation.

此外，公司评估血缘关系的电脑程序可能申请了专利，不能对该程序进行同行审查、外界评估。