Reviewing Child Custody Evaluations and Faux Science

See complete article at thelizlibrary.org

The posture of science is only required in order to justify an outcome that does not seem to make readily apparent sense. Few (if any) of the considerations that actually will move the final decision-making have anything to do with "science." It may well have to be "all about science" to the extent a trial court is diverted away from relevant matters off on a tangent about whether an initial evaluator (who arguably should not have been involved in the case in the first place) properly analyzed a psychometric test and similar, but the custody evaluator's investigation and recommendations -- and the court's final decisions -- actually will have little to do with anything scientific. Even if the custody evaluation reviewers are arguably more scientific in certain ways in order to counter the initial evaluator's opinions, the "crafting of scientific custody evaluations" remains a posture ignoring that it was inappropriate in the first place to burden a litigant who disagrees with the recommended arrangement with a second opponent in court arging for what are, at the core, his own personal preferences. And as to this opponent, the litigant is faced with having to hire a reviewer with ostensibly more scientific expertise to litigate the tangential side case because the first MHP was presumed to have grounded his opinions in science, thereby shielding them from ready criticism inside an armor of unwarranted wisdom and credibility.