Wallerstein has caused harm

A reader agrees that Judith Wallerstein's research is unscientific, but thinks that I have been unfairly harsh by comparing her to an astrologer.

Wallerstein's father died when she was young, and she has spent most of her live collecting stories that supposedly prove that fathers are extraneous to child-rearing. Her typical approach is to find some example of a divorced father who was forced out of his child's life, and then complain that the father did not pay for the child's college education.

She has done a lot of harm, especially here in California. She testifies as an expert witness in child custody disputes, and argues that divorced mothers should just move the child away from the father so that the mother and the child won't have to be bothered with visitation schedules. She even has the nerve to argue that such move-aways are in the best interest of the child.

Somehow the California courts have accepted her as one of the nation's leading authorities on divorce. Comparing her to an astrologer is too kind. She is a kook, and she has caused a lot of harm.