The unknown Baranov. Forty years of polemics over the formal theory of the life of fishes

Abstract

Abstract The year 2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the publication of paper “On the question of the biological basis of fisheries” by F.I. Baranov considered a cornerstone paper of modern fishery science. Baranov formalized population dynamics by describing changes in population abundance using differential equations, introducing the concept of instantaneous fishing and natural mortality rates, and developing his catch equation, which is the foundation of most modern age-structured stock assessment models. Baranov was the first to show the effect of fishing on population structure based on theoretical grounds. At the time of its publication, Baranov’s paper did not receive much attention in Russia and was completely unknown to scientists in the West. The second publication (On the question of the dynamics of the fishing industry, 1925) received substantial criticism from many and sparked a furious debate between Baranov and his opponents that lasted for several decades. The history and content of those debates, expressed in multiple papers by Baranov, is still largely unknown. I describe the essence of arguments by Baranov and his opponents. The story of these scientific debates reveals how different philosophical concepts and dominant points of view evolved through time.