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Why is Walter so bitter? (Read 24672 times)
freediver
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #60 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 6:08pm
 
Quote:
Crap. You haven't responded to the 'technical bits' at all - and you have admitted this.


I have responded to many technical criticisms from Walter, and also many of the personal criticisms he has directed against real scientists (as opposed to pretend scientists like him). Every single claim of Walter's that I have looked into has turned out to be completely bogus. Some examples are his comparisons of catch per unit area of the GBR and other reefs that made no effort to ensure that it was comparing apples with apples and which reached a predictably absurd conclusion. An example of a personal attack I looked into was his claim that some scientists did not disclose something that was on the front page of their paper. It all seems to be targetted not at an informed or scientific audience, but at an ignorant audience that would not know their arse from their elbow and hence who could easily be fooled into thinking Walter was a real scientists and that his claims stood up to scrutiny.

Quote:
Not wanting to base the argument on scientific authority does not mean I have to make a declaration that he hasn't any scientific authority - duh!


I just thought you wanted to run away from this particular topic. I am happy to continue discussing his credibility. The sooner you realise he has none, the better.

Quote:
If he is a phoney then it wouldn't be hard to demolish his arguments.


Sure it would be easy, but would it be worthwhile? Would you even be able to tell the difference? All the times in the past I have done so didn't make any difference to you. Wasn't it you who said you didn't really understand it anyway, but it must be right because Walter is such a bigshot scientist?
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pjb05
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #61 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:44pm
 
freediver wrote on Jul 21st, 2010 at 6:08pm:
[quote]Crap. You haven't responded to the 'technical bits' at all - and you have admitted this.


I have responded to many technical criticisms from Walter, and also many of the personal criticisms he has directed against real scientists (as opposed to pretend scientists like him). Every single claim of Walter's that I have looked into has turned out to be completely bogus.

Except the topic of this post you mean? You haven't contested these claims at all.

Some examples are his comparisons of catch per unit area of the GBR and other reefs that made no effort to ensure that it was comparing apples with apples and which reached a predictably absurd conclusion.

Oopsy FD. Catch per unit area is commonly used to assess fishing pressure on coral reefs and is used as a guide to sustainability. Any 'apples with apples' issues are insignificant given that the fishing effort on the GBR is orders of magnitude below what is regarded as sustainable for coral reefs.

 

An example of a personal attack I looked into was his claim that some scientists did not disclose something that was on the front page of their paper.

Only one of the four Pew links were disclosed. Then there is the fact that there is an overt declaration of no conflict of interest when patently there is.

It all seems to be targetted not at an informed or scientific audience, but at an ignorant audience that would not know their arse from their elbow and hence who could easily be fooled into thinking Walter was a real scientists and that his claims stood up to scrutiny.

Pathetic ad hom.

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« Last Edit: Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:58pm by pjb05 »  
 
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freediver
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #62 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:48pm
 
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Except the topic of this post you mean? You haven't contested these claims at all.


I have addressed the topic of Walter's bitterness many times in this thread. I have also addressed his rediculous ad hominem's against genuine scientists.

Quote:
Oopsy FD. Catch per unit effort is commonly used to assess fishing pressure on coral reefs


Oopsy PJ. I said area, not effort. Surely you remember this one?

Quote:
Any 'apples with apples' issues are insignificant given that the fishing effort on the GBR is orders of magnitude below what is regarded as sustainable for coral reefs.


I guess you do, seeing as you trot this silly line out constantly.
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pjb05
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #63 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:54pm
 
freediver wrote on Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:48pm:
[
Oopsy PJ. I said area, not effort. Surely you remember this one?

[.


Thats why I brought it up. I do have references remember. Oopsy FD.
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pjb05
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #64 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:02pm
 
freediver wrote on Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:48pm:
Quote:
Except the topic of this post you mean? You haven't contested these claims at all.


I have addressed the topic of Walter's bitterness many times in this thread. I have also addressed his rediculous ad hominem's against genuine scientists.

[.



And you haven't addressed the scientific and economic arguments, have you. The points you rased have been red herrings.
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pjb05
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #65 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:51pm
 
You dont have to take my word for it:

Status of Pacific Island coral reef fisheries

by Tim Adams1, Paul Dalzell1 and Richard Farman2
1SPC Coastal Fisheries Programme
2Service de la mer, Province Sud, Nouméa, New Caledonia

(paper presented at 8th International Coral Reef Symposium, Panama, 1996)

Yield comparisons: Several estimates of actual fisheries yield per unit area of reef have been made (see Table 1), but studies that indicate the sustainable capacity of coral reef fisheries are rare. Jennings and Polunin (1995) have suggested, based on observations at different sites in Fiji subject to different levels of fishing activity, that a yield of at least 10 tonnes of fin-fish per square kilometre of reef is sustainable, at least where reefs are subject to low influence from human land-based activities. The overall average for the 43 Pacific Island fisheries detailed in Table 1 is 7.7 tonnes per square kilometre of reef. There are definite outliers, such as Niutao in Tuvalu, American Samoa, and Tarawa in Kiribati, but since the upper limit of overall sustainability is unknown, not a great deal can be said regarding overfishing per se. However, these areas should definitely be priority areas for fisheries management.




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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #66 - Jul 22nd, 2010 at 7:57pm
 
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And you haven't addressed the scientific and economic arguments, have you. The points you rased have been red herrings.


Which points do you think were red herrings? I don't recall there being an economic aspect to this particular argument.
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #67 - Jul 22nd, 2010 at 8:45pm
 
freediver wrote on Jul 22nd, 2010 at 7:57pm:
[quote]
Which points do you think were red herrings? I don't recall there being an economic aspect to this particular argument.


Pretty much all of them. As to the economic argument you musn't have been paying much attention to the original post:

McCook et al. state, "The economic value of a healthy GBR to Australia is enormous, currently estimated to be about A$5.5 billion annually...." "Relative to the revenue generated by reef tourism, current expenditure on protection is minor." "Tourism accounts for the vast majority of reef-based income and employment. ...income from tourism is estimated to be about 36 times greater than commercial fishing."

These claims are highly misleading. The economic value cited includes the total value for all tourism in the region when half of all tourists do not even visit the reef. For those who do, the reef component of the large majority is a one day, one time participation in a reef tour and the value of reef tours is similar to the value of commercial fishing.

If one also considers the economic value of recreational fishing, retail fish sales and seafood meals in restaurants, the total value of fishing is closer to twice that of reef tours. In addition, the reef tour industry regularly uses only about 2 dozen out of the 2500 reefs of the GBR and, on those which are used, the actual area visited would only be about 1% of the area of even those reefs.

Unfished reefs to optimize scenic value for tourism could easily coexist with an order of magnitude greater fishing effort, and no detriment at all to tourism. The attribution of total tourism value to the reef is no more justifiable than attributing it to the similar numbers who visit the rainforest or who eat seafood meals while visiting the region.

Such claims have been repeatedly made by GBRMPA and would, if used by a business, constitute violations of advertising and corporate law. To see it done repeatedly and included in a report in a leading scientific journal is a sad indictment of GBRMPA sponsored science as well as basic honesty.



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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #68 - Jul 22nd, 2010 at 8:47pm
 
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Pretty much all of them.


Can you pick one in particular? The most red herringest of all the red herrings? Or have you forgotten what you were making stuff up about?
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freediver
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #69 - Jul 22nd, 2010 at 8:52pm
 
pjb05 wrote on Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:51pm:
You dont have to take my word for it:

Status of Pacific Island coral reef fisheries

by Tim Adams1, Paul Dalzell1 and Richard Farman2
1SPC Coastal Fisheries Programme
2Service de la mer, Province Sud, Nouméa, New Caledonia

(paper presented at 8th International Coral Reef Symposium, Panama, 1996)

Yield comparisons: Several estimates of actual fisheries yield per unit area of reef have been made (see Table 1), but studies that indicate the sustainable capacity of coral reef fisheries are rare. Jennings and Polunin (1995) have suggested, based on observations at different sites in Fiji subject to different levels of fishing activity, that a yield of at least 10 tonnes of fin-fish per square kilometre of reef is sustainable, at least where reefs are subject to low influence from human land-based activities. The overall average for the 43 Pacific Island fisheries detailed in Table 1 is 7.7 tonnes per square kilometre of reef. There are definite outliers, such as Niutao in Tuvalu, American Samoa, and Tarawa in Kiribati, but since the upper limit of overall sustainability is unknown, not a great deal can be said regarding overfishing per se. However, these areas should definitely be priority areas for fisheries management.






Interesting. I don't see any of the absurd conclusions that Walter tried to draw. Maybe that's why this guy got published and Walter did not.
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #70 - Jul 22nd, 2010 at 9:01pm
 
freediver wrote on Jul 22nd, 2010 at 8:52pm:
[quote author=pjb05 link=1272776383/60#65 date=1279709483]


Interesting. I don't see any of the absurd conclusions that Walter tried to draw. Maybe that's why this guy got published and Walter did not.



Do you know what you saying? It backs up the use of catch per unit area for assessing coral reef fisheries.

Also consider the other point that you tried to rubbish, ie a catch rate of 9kg per square km per year of the GBR is very low considering that up to 10 tonnes is regarded as sustainable.
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #71 - Jul 23rd, 2010 at 5:38pm
 
The suggestion that Sustainable CPUA on one reef system should or could be the same as that on a coral reef in a different part of the Pacific, given that it is local ocean productivity that most affects the productivity of a fishery - and this varies greatly on a regional basis - has always seemed highly misleading.
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #72 - Jul 23rd, 2010 at 6:00pm
 
fishfinder wrote on Jul 23rd, 2010 at 5:38pm:
The suggestion that Sustainable CPUA on one reef system should or could be the same as that on a coral reef in a different part of the Pacific, given that it is local ocean productivity that most affects the productivity of a fishery - and this varies greatly on a regional basis - has always seemed highly misleading.


Your point being in the context of this debate?

-The scientists in the paper I put up think its a useful comparison.

- There is no evidence that the GBR is less productive than average. Actually the evidence is to the contrary.

- With 100x less fishing pressure on the GBR than what is regarded as sutainable for coral reefs, are you suggesting that the GBR is 100x less productive or that it is lightly fished?
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #73 - Jul 23rd, 2010 at 9:57pm
 
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The scientists in the paper I put up think its a useful comparison.


Oh really. This is what I read: "not a great deal can be said regarding overfishing per se". Maybe you read something else?

Also, the fact that other scientists have attempted to calculate CPUA does not mean that Walter Starck calculated the same thing, or made any effort at all to make a valid comparison.

This is of course why you use Walter Starck's comparison to argue against retrictions on recreational fishermen, but for some reason common sense suddenly kicks in at the suggestion that the same figures could be used to argue against restrictions on commercial fishermen, even though if Walter's comparison had any merit at all it would justify huge increases in the catch.

Only an idiot would compare catch rates of the top quality fish over an area the size of the GBR with the catch rates of subsistence fishermen targetting the other end of the food chain on tiny reefs. Only Walter Starck.

Have you ever wondered why a bigshot scientist like Walter has no genuine scientific publications in peer reviewed journals?
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Re: Why is Walter so bitter?
Reply #74 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 2:15am
 
I would have thought the important point would be not that CPUA is 100X lower on the GBR coral reefs than other reefs with different oceanography, biology and fishing methods etc.- but what CPUA can the GBR handle? We know quite a lot about the oceanography and biology of the GBR and fishing methods employed there. I don't think any other scientists have suggested ratcheting up the fishing pressure to that extent and it seems a pretty radical course of action based on a simple comparison and a lone voice.
I'm no expert but I would have thought not all coral reef fisheries are the same. Temperate fisheries are not.
Where I'm living in WA the entire demersal scalefish catch (of over 15 species) was ~1500t in an . It has been cut this year to ~750t to avoid 'high risk' of collapse of those fisheries. This fishery is spread over ~1000km of coastline. Just one of those species, Pink Snapper, in just one fishery zone in New Zealand - over about 100km of coastline - has an allowable catch of 4500t that is considered a sustainable yield. In other words one species in a fishery area a tenth of the size can produce six times more fish than all the fish in 1000km of coastline in Western Australia.
To me, this suggests that fishery productivity varies widely.
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