Fisheries Stock Assessment: an Inductive Science with the Logical Form of Primitive Magic
By Dr. Christopher Corkett
ABSTRACT
A logical analysis of the common fisheries models used in fisheries stock assessment has shown that they produce existential predictions, fail Karl Popper's criterion for empirical science, and have the logical form of primitive magic. Stock assessment is presently conducted under an inductive approach in which the specific predictions produced by models are used to set future policy. This thesis is illustrated with reference to an empirical version of a Schaefer-like model (the Graham-Schaefer model). By contrast, the theoretical models of fisheries economics do not produce specific predictions but general patterns that are able to exclude possibilities. These models meet Karl Popper's criterion for empirical science since, from a logical point of view, the excluded possibilities represent potential falsifications. Stock assessment's inductive use of specific predictions should be replaced by a critical rational approach in which management decisions are based on those fisheries models that best survive a critical discussion. This thesis is illustrated by the Gordon-Schaefer model of fisheries economics, in which bioenonomic optima are interpreted as normative laws; norms that a modern fisheries manager incorporates into a social engineering by way of the methodological rule of concomitance.
KEYWORDS: Karl Popper, falsifiability, fisheries, stock assessment, Schaefer, induction
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