Fishing for Truth: A Sociological Analysis of Northern Cod Stock Assessments from 1977 to 1990

Fishing for Truth is the complex story of the role of science in the decline of the Northern Cod stocks. At issue are conflicting interpretations of recent events, institutional and scientific texts, and scientific data. The central claim of the book is that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is influenced by social process. Finlayson, a sociologist, conducted extensive interviews with scientists and bureaucrats in the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO); he argues that failure to predict fish stocks is closely related to the failure to recognize how scientists' interpretations of natural reality are themselves socially constructed to a crucial degree.