Summary

Researchers have identified the following shortcomings in much of the literature that has sought to investigate minor-attracted men or adult-minor sexual interaction:

• reliance on clinical and criminal samples and generalizing their results to larger populations¹
• use of vague or confused terminology²
• use of legal or moral definitions rather than scientific ones³
• assumptions that correlation implies causation, without the use of control groups or without considering confounding variables⁴
• reliance on ideology rather than scientific principles in the design of studies⁵
• reliance on speculation or ideology rather than empirical findings as the basis for drawing conclusions⁶