The projected doomsday date for the collapse of world fisheries, outlined in a peer-reviewed, Science magazine research article that took on life of its own in countless alarmist stories about overfishing the oceans, "was not meant to be taken literally," the environmental group Oceana has claimed.
But if Boris Worm, the lead scientist of the 2006 study did not intend the 2048 date to be taken literally, he has indicated that he had an ulterior and non-scientific purpose for it — to gin up interest in the study.
In an e-mail he did not intend for the press, Worm admitted the use of the end-game date for functioning fisheries was as a "news hook." Even Oceana, whose chief e-mailed the press and last week about the figurative use of the 2048 time frame, used it as if the researchers had data documenting what they wrote.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.