Abalones provide a unique fishery in California. It is the only fishery in which the fishermen use diving gear and the catch cannot be exported. Because they are taken both by sportsmen and commercial fishermen, abalones have almost always attracted considerable attention and interest. A lack of early life history and other quantitative information has caused almost continuous dispute between the sport and commercial fisheries. Several previous abalone studies were concerned primarily with the early fishery and fishing methods or discussed nomenclature and geographical distribution. Limited biological studies yielded inaccurate conclusions because of insufficient data.

In 1939, the commercial abalone industry was asked to offer suggestions for regulating the fishery, and a crew supervised by a Fish and Game biologist surveyed the coastline from Monterey to San Miguel Island. Thirty-four dives were made and 16 1/2 hours were spent on the bottom; however, this survey (Bonnot, 1940) and others (Bonnot, 1948) failed to provide an answer to the question, "What is the effect of the commercial offshore fishery on the shoreside sportfishery?" In an attempt to obtain the answer, the State Legislature directed the Department of Fish and Game to set up an abalone program and solve the dispute once and for all. In 1951, the Department launched a full-scale investigation with two vessels and a diving crew. The untimely death in August 1951 of Paul Bonnot, who had been assigned to head the investigation, was a serious setback. It was necessary for a new biologist (me) to take over and start from the bottom. Since I had no previous diving experience, I had to undergo training so I could handle myself safely underwater.

With the exception of Bonnot's underwater experiences, almost all previous observations had been made from the littoral zone. It was decided that this investigation would concentrate on the underwater aspects of the problem and most effort was directed toward fulfilling this objective. Over 1,500 hours were logged underwater by the project's divers during the investigation. Considerable new information was gathered and this report contains many of our findings.

It is my intent in this paper to provide not only the specific information requested by the State Legislature but, as far as is practical, to present as much additional information as seems appropriate and of interest.

Pediatric medical visits represent a unique opportunity for studying uncertainty, authority, and agency. In these visits medical authority and parental authority converge on a common goal — the child’s best interests. However, physicians and parents do not always agree on what courses of action are best. Physicians may disagree with parents but nevertheless rely on them to carry out treatment plans. Parents may challenge medical authority but nevertheless rely on physicians for access to the medical goods and services that they need to care for their child. In these points of departure medical authority and parental authority collide; and when the child’s problem is non-routine like a seizure the stakes can be particularly high. This dissertation explores the physician-parent partnership in a particular context: pediatric neurology visits for overnight vEEG testing. I adopt a conversation analytic approach to examine interactions between physicians and parents during these encounters, paying particular attention to the themes of uncertainty, authority, and agency. I find that parents and physicians use (un)certainty to accomplish specific interactional goals. Parents can invoke uncertainty as an account for their conduct when they have somehow challenged medical authority, thus mitigating damage to the physician-family partnership; and physicians can modulate the certainty of diagnoses, treatment efficacy, and other aspects of the child’s condition and care as a means of exerting control over visit outcomes. In the context of news deliveries, I find that the relative rights to ascribe valence to news in pediatric neurology diverge from those observed in everyday life, and this causes problems in the delivery and reception of good news. In these encounters, physicians prioritize conveying the facts of the news over characterizing its valence, but parents tend to treat both components as necessary before they are willing to assess the news. When physicians fail to provide either component, parents orient to news deliveries as incomplete. This not only causes difficulties in parents’ reception of the news but also leads to protracted news deliveries. Taken together, these findings suggest an enduring orientation to medical authority as a legitimate property of the physician-family partnership.

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