Slashdot article New Dating Sites Match People Through DNA Tests. I love /., as it’s called, check out these comments:
Yeah… Submit your DNA profile to a for-profit corporation that lets you do things with it through a web interface. Your info will never be hacked. Your info will never be sold. Your info will never be given to government agencies. Trust us.
I didn’t RTFA, because I can proudly say that I was involved in the group that produced MHC mediated sexual selection studies that ScientificMatch.com uses to claim their rationale. A few comments: First, if Scientific match has any wits about them, they’ll also consider other information. I don’t think anyone’s stupid enough to think there’s a single correlate to mate selection. But the worry about people who are too different is poorly founded – MHC diversity is strongly retained throughout most human lineages.
I believe that DNA testing will possibly be a single component of matching/compatibility systems of the future. I met with ScientificMatch founder Eric Holzle when he was getting started. Nice guy, great market potential, but at a much lower price. ScientificMatch is over $1,000, which is why it’s no getting much traction at the moment.
Holzle didn’t have any success stories to share. In fact, he is planning to phase out the dating part of the site he started in 2007 to market the tests directly to matchmakers and couples. He promises a refund of the $1,995.95 lifetime membership.
Something told me that wasn’t going to work, but he had to try.
Sense2love is going to offer the GeneParter $99 test starting next month. Read the Sense2Love blog. All of a sudden ScientificMatch looks like it’s ridiculously overpriced.
Then there’s Basisnote (translated) and a few others wanting to compete in the space. I’ve talked to most of them.
If you thought the battle to bring identity verification to online dating was brutal, just watch the science guys try to sell their ideas. All of the dating site business development people have heard the pitch, and they politely decline the offer, because it’s going to scare the hell out of their members and create massive branding problems.
Anything that gets in the way of converting visitors to paying members is a waste of time, or so dating sites seem to think. As with background checks, perhaps the DNA dating market is really better suited to Human Resources companies or some other more welcoming market.
Can DNA and science do an end run around tests and matching systems? I don’t know, no one else does either. Maybe OKCupid can offer it to some members and write a blog post about it.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Forget DNA for dating purposes.
DNA for dating purposes offers to maximize genetic dissimilarity between prospective partners and that is WRONG!!!
There is a milestone paper “Does the contraceptive pill alter mate choice in humans?” written by Drs. Alvergne & Lummaa (2010) that is a big punch to “DNA matching methods, based on the T_shirt Experiment”
Alvergne & Lummaa clearly say:
“Furthermore, whereas normally cycling women express a preference for MHC (major histocompatibility complex) dissimilarity in mates, pill users prefer odours of MHC-SIMILAR men, indicating that pill use might eliminate adaptive preferences for genetic dissimilarity.”
…………….
“Recently, Roberts et al. attempted to eliminate these potential confounds by adopting a within-subject design in which women’s mate preferences were assessed before and after they began taking the pill. Women starting the pill showed a significant preference shift towards MHC
SIMILARITY compared with three months before the pill was taken, a shift that was not observed in the control group of normally cycling women. This study replicates previous evidence based on between-subject comparisons, and suggests that contraceptive pill use disrupts disassortative mate preferences in women, leading to a preference for individuals who are SIMILAR to relatives.”
………………
Only short-term but not long-term partner preferences tend to vary with the menstrual cycle [Gangestad, S.W. and Thornhill, R. (2008) paper "Human oestrus"]
Other papers showing the freshest Research in Theories of Romantic Relationships Development outline: compatibility is all about a high level on personality similarity between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
IF personality is build by 70% of genetics and 30% of environment influences, genetic similarity matters (for long term mating with commitment) AND NOT to maximize genetic dissimilarity as DNA dating does.
Regards.
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com