Managing the fisheries by social engineering: a re‐evaluation of the methods of stock assessment

This paper criticises the management of the world's fisheries that are based upon the use of ‘positive’ predictions derived from fisheries models, an instrumentalist approach which is illustrated by the practical application of Graham‐Schaefer models constructed according to the verificationist's view of science. Instrumentalism is attractive for stock assessment because it appears to meet the need to overcome barriers within fisheries science to the deduction of specific predictions from universal laws. Through the construction of empirical models, existential predictions are produced which ape the specific predictions of the physical sciences and are of no more value in the management of the world's fisheries than the magic spells of witch doctors. To be contrasted with instrumentalism's prophetic use of ‘positive’ predictions, Karl Popper advocated a realist approach in which theoretical models help us gain factual information about the real‐world in the form of what cannot be achieved : ‘negative’ explanatory predictions produced by models constructed according to the falsificationist's view of science and illustrated by the practical application of theoretical Gordon‐Schaefer fisheries models. The absence within fisheries stock assessment of a suitable alternative to instrumentalism comprises a widespread methodological lacuna. It is proposed that Popper's technological social science, designed to solve problems of social tradition of which overfishing is an example, would fill this lacuna. This technology would employ the services of a social engineer, a modern fisheries manager , who would use the pre‐scientific method of trial and error and the negative guidance of bold pattern predictions to re‐evaluate the institutions of fisheries management.