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10 - Science and management: systemically matching the questions

from PART III - USING PATTERNS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2011

By
Charles W. Fowler  and
Larry Hobbs
Edited by
Andrea Belgrano  and
Charles W. Fowler
Andrea Belgrano
Affiliation:
Institute of Marine Research, Sweden
Charles W. Fowler
Affiliation:
National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle
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Summary

The key to wisdom is knowing all the right questions.

John A. Simone, Jr.

The job is to ask questions – it always was – and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.

Arthur Miller

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

Thomas Berger

Effective management always means asking the right question.

Robert Heller

Abstract

A primary objective of management is to achieve sustainable interactions and relationships. As individuals, this involves interactions with other individuals, other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. It is the same for us as a species: management involves sustainable interactions – relationships with individuals, other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere (the non-human). Two crucial steps in carrying out such management are: (a) to ask clear management questions and (b) to carefully express matching research questions. Central to the message of this chapter is the point that the pairing of such questions must be tightly coupled. There must be a pair of questions for each of our many interactions with the non-human in order to achieve sustainability. The pairing of management questions and scientific questions must involve a consistency far beyond anything achieved in today's management. It must identify the kind of interaction and the levels of biological organization (e.g., individuals, species, and ecosystems) involved. Achieved effectively, the match between the two kinds of questions removes most of the barriers that currently exist between science and management – barriers of human origin that not only prevent achieving sustainability but have also led to many of the problems we face today.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ecosystem Based Management for Marine Fisheries
An Evolving Perspective
 , pp. 279 - 306
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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