Talk:David Finkelhor

Biog
Apparently, he has a biography, formerly located at a now removed external link. Any help finding this would be appreciated. Daniel Lièvre (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Controversies
According to the article on Peter Ellis and the Christchurch Civic Creche case, 'Finkelhor's work has since been discredited' (Section, 'Smart Report'). The 'work' concerned is that documented in his book 'Nursery Crimes' which is discredited by association. This is not mentioned anywhere I can see in the article, which treats this and other works of his as authoritative. They can't both be right.

I am aware, and editors are probably aware, of the ideological element in 'expert' work on child abuse, and it's advisable to know the standpoint any 'expert' adopts. Chrismorey (talk) 16:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Have my changes clarified it at all, ? 172.195.96.244 (talk) 00:54, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Fine, thanks. I added a heading before the last para 'Controversies', as is common practice elsewhere. Chrismorey (talk) 07:48, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Weeell... from the article, one cannot tell if Finkelhor supported the Satanic panic (he did) or was skeptical of it, agreeing with the scientific consensus. Just that he said something (what?) about it and someone else disagreed with him. That makes the article a bit incomplete. I would repair it if I were more of an expert in this, but I am not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:07, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The material at Satanic panic might help, . 172.195.96.244 (talk) 10:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Now we only need this article to be expanded in that direction without copy-paste. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Be wary of implying guilt by association with the Rind et al controversy. This article simply mentions he was cited by Rind et al, which is not in itself controversial. The context of Finkelhor's work to Rind et al. is missing. And crtitiques or associations should not be framed as a controversy unless largely framed as such in reliable secondary sources. Criticism and disagreements are routine in academia; they need not be granted undue prominence. See WP:PROPORTION and WP:BLPBALANCE, as well as WP:CRITS. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, . Before I did my small expansion, Rind and de Young's criticisms were grouped together and neither gave context.  Having noticed that de Young's criticism addressed only one area of Finkelhor's work and was totally unrelated to Rind's investigation, I tried to separate them and to make the sentence that referenced the Rind et al. controversy clear that Rind's work was controversial.  From position and further publications / citations, etc, my impression is that Finkelhor is a mainstream and notable academic who stuffed up on the satanic abuse work and has been criticised for it, but is in a different category from Rind.  I am not certain that a "controversies" section is warranted, more likely an NPOV section on the Nursery Crimes work, and Rind (if DUE) placed elsewhere.  172.195.96.244 (talk) 00:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Additional secondary sources
This article still needs needs work to ensure accuracy, fairness and due weight per WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. Criticism may be warranted where appropriate, but should not dominate, nor distort the big picture. From my incomplete survey of a diversity of sources, Finkelhor is widely cited in books and journals (h-index of 148 and i10-index of 364 according to Google Scholar) and still widely considered an authority in childhood abuse and domestic violence (still routinely interviewed and quoted), although some of his work in relation to ritualistic abuse has been criticized (perhaps even "discredited"). Care should be taken to ensure that criticism of some research is not worded to imply that all of his research is suspect, discredited, or controversial, nor to imply a false-equivalence, i.e. that all criticism is equally valid (critics appear to include Mary de Young, Bruce Rind, and Debbie Nathan), nor that the critic's view is necessarily more correct. I place here a wide selection of sources that might be used to improve the biography. I'm not advocating that every source needs be included, nor that every study he's done need mention. But every fact should be appropriate and every sentence have a purpose that makes sense in the article overall. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:15, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * (frequent discussion of the work of Finkelhor and colleagues throughout).
 * (frequent discussion of the work of Finkelhor and colleagues throughout).
 * (frequent discussion of the work of Finkelhor and colleagues throughout).
 * (frequent discussion of the work of Finkelhor and colleagues throughout).