To have a fling on the ling

Beware the misapplication of results: Response to Cardinale and Svedäng (2007)

“…We agree entirely with Cardinale and Svedäng (2008) that great care must be made in the analysis of historical data. However, the arguments they make are largely rooted in the misinterpretation and misapplication of our results.…”

“…: +453 65504635. it would appear that Cardinale and Svedäng (2008) agree with these conclusions despite their other protestations. Cardinale and Svedäng (2008) list among the keywords for their Letter to the Editor, "data maltreatment." However, they never discuss how Poulsen et al (2007) mistreated their data.…”

“…They then use Poulsen et al (2007) in an attempt to make their case. However, at no point do Cardinale and Svedäng (2008) ever raise issues with neither the data that were used nor the models that were applied to such data. Their sole criticism appears to be that the results do not agree with their a priori assumptions as to how the stocks must have looked during those times.…”

“…However, they never discuss how Poulsen et al (2007) mistreated their data. In fact, we feel Cardinale and Svedäng (2008) mistreat the results of Poulsen et al (2007), which focus on a very specific and small region within the North Sea, by comparing them to the entire North Sea ecosystem. If one is concerned about the appropriate application of results from historical studies, a key issue is limiting ones conclusions to the proper temporal and spatial scale.…”

“…However, they fail to notice that Table 3 gives the estimated coefficients for catchability, and that the ratio of the means (which might not necessarily equal the maximum likelihood estimate of the ratio) is only 5.5. Cardinale and Svedäng (2008) then compare their implied ratio to anecdotal evidence from Karl Erling Alexander ("who fished for ling at Rockall") who claimed that the q for ling should be 60 times larger than that for cod in terms of biomass. Rockall Bank is well off the western coast of the UK (55-58.3 • N and 18-13 • W).…”