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Like other types of DNA testing, paternity testing first requires that a set of DNA profiles be developed for comparison. Paternity testing compares three profiles, one of the child, one of the mother, and one of the putative father. DNA profiles do not speak for themselves; they must instead be compared to each other.

When it comes to the comparison, paternity testing is not the same as other kinds of DNA testing, such as that typically used for a criminal case in which a biological sample is compared to a defendant's to see if there is a match. This is because a child ...