Salmon and SCAMs

Coming soon, stay tuned.

Here's a teaser, from a paper co-authored by Debra Davidson of the University of Alberta, that coined the term SCAMs (Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods):

Given that most scientific findings are inherently probabilistic and ambiguous, if agencies can be prevented from imposing any regulations until they are unambiguously “justified,” most regulations can be defeated or postponed, often for decades, allowing profitable but potentially risky activities to continue unabated.

Will explain this further soon... the fascinating thing is that Davidson et al appear to have found a kind of Rosetta Stone that translates the codes of most anti-ecological PR lobbies. SCAMs places much of the DFO's science where it belongs, with the bogus research and deny-and-delay tactics promoted by leaded-gasoline proponents, the asbestos industry, and the Tobacco Institute.

We won't save wild fish if we can't recognize when we're being SCAMmed by the DFO and other groups, or when we inadvertently promote SCAMs ourselves.

(This is the full post, don't bother clicking the Read Full Post link. Credit for the illustration above goes to WorldWatch, from their May/June 2008 feature.)