I've been in the wild for the past 10 days and am now just catching up with coverage on the YFZ raid. The judicial order for genetic testing of kids and parents is a fascinating development, and I wonder what compliance will be among men. Certainly, the resulting evidence may be damning, allowing identification of offspring resulting from the union of under-age girls and older celestial husbands, and providing evidence to support prosecution. Another consideration is what other uses may be made of these data. Medical implications are obvious, although those who believe their sperm are divine may not be willing to forgo procreation, even if they do carry the gene for fumerase deficiency, or other genetic disorders plaguing this population. A dataset of this sort may allow identification of the line from which these disorders arose. For example, it may be possible to make a statement like "a mutation in the testicle of Warren Jeff's great grandfather resulted in the introduction of Tourette's syndrome to the FLDS."

Then there are the population descriptors geneticists calculate. Homozygosity, or the extent of inbreeding is an obvious one. Effective population size is another. Effective population size is a measure of the number of individuals within the population that reproduce. Certainly, most of the women do, but the genetics database will allow an estimation of the proportion of men with reproductive opportunities.

Genetic evidence may also identify extra-marital relations among women. When genetics were first employed in population studies, the proportion of "sneaking" among presumably monogamous species was an eye opener. Despite the strictures against extra-marital sex, humans are going to mix it up.