Re: “Salmon researchers seek funds for expanded expedition in 2020,” May 19.
The article describes the preparation for yet another salmon-research expedition in the North Pacific. It covers the participants, the area to be investigated, some of the data to be collected, but nowhere does it state what the hypothesis is that the scientists might be testing.
In climate change, medicine and agriculture, for example, change is investigated with some proposal (or proposals) for an underlying cause. Scientists can then focus their data-collecting on this hypothesis with much better integrative value in their work.
The article mentions a number of fisheries scientists, but none of them have a proposed hypothesis for this expedition. If we were talking climate change, our hypothesis would centre on carbon dioxide accumulation. But in decades of research on salmon, the scientists do not appear to have any hypothesis regarding population variability.
Only one more expensive expedition to gather data.
Tim Parsons, PhD
Brentwood Bay
