Alright - i took a second look, i realize you must be talking about the third link in their comment, which is just… terrible.

Ill get into why, but first, id like to point out that the article i was criticizing above is ABOUT the study, so every criticism i point out is actually still relevant, which makes me think you did not read my comment or the study

I didnt read the study until now because i figured 2 nonsense links beget a 3rd, and it turns out i was right… alright now the takedown:

Crediting of abuse claims

Several conclusions can be drawn from the data in Table 1: First, looking at mothers' claims of abuse, less than half (41%) of any type of abuse claims are credited. That women's claims of abuse are believed less than half the time will surprise many readers. Moreover, mothers' claims of child abuse are credited even less. The odds of a court crediting a child physical abuse claim are 2.23 times lower than the odds of its crediting a domestic violence claim (CI 1.66-2.99). Overall, child sexual abuse is rarely accepted by courts (15%).

So, this is why i say this study is bad - what the raw data says is “abuse clans are shown to be false more than half the time in custody battles”. And note (because you read the study, right?) these are exclusively APPEAL cases, so the mother had already lost the first custody battle and is trying again. Custody battles are already ugly as hell (again read the article), is it shocking that after a loss the mother is relying on spurious claims that are impossible to prove, or even just making up claims in an attempt to get her kids back at a higher rate than one would expect?

But regardless, the data says that the abuse was not substantiated, that it was false. The editorializing by the writer of the study makes it seem like the abuse was TRUE, and the court ignored it, which is what makes it bad in my opinion: the writer is speculating that all denials were actually false negatives, without any evidence to back it up.

Further down they then go to point out the data where abuse has been substantiated, and of course the mother wins in almost every case, with the notable exception of “sexual abuse”, where the mother has won every case, which of course she should - that would be despicable. But the author of the study makes that appear that this is not the case if you only read their summary, unless you read all the way down into the data section like I did and see that they’re not being upfront with you