So you may be wondering why I am rabbiting on about how great it was to be allowed to follow the debate, so what right? What is the point if a debate as important as this is just conducted over email? And here is the neat part.... this debate is now available on line for all to see and even participate in themselves! This is perhaps a really good example of where a scientific debate that is so pertinent to everyone, (or at least those of us that like sea food and the marine environment) can be removed from the "ivory tower" of academia and brought into the wider world.
Should such migration of scientific debate from the constrains of the ivory tower be encouraged? I think so.
Let us eat fish, R. Hilborn, New York Times
Sea Monster - forum on fish, food and people where you can read and participate in the debate that took place in response to Ray Hilborn's New York piece.
Paper on over-fishingRebuilding Global Fisheries, Worm et al. 2009. Science. 325 (578-585)
Paper written as a result of the Sea Monster fisheries debate:
The overfishing debate: an eco-evolutionary perspective, Palkovacs (in press). TREE.