"I once found myself seated on an airplane next to a charming woman who's interests revolved primarily around the activities of her very energetic family. At one point in the conversaion came the inevitable question: 'what sort of work do you do?' I confess that I rather hate that question... I replied to the woman: 'Well, I work with fish populations. The trouble with fish is that you never get to see the whole population. They're not like trees, whose numbers could perhaps be estimated by flying over the forest. Mostly, you see fish only when they're caught... So, you see, if you study fish populations, you tend to get little pieces of information here and there. These bits of information are like the tip of the iceberg; they're part of a much larger story. My job is to try to put the story together. I'm a detective, really, who assembles clues into a coherent picture.'" Schnute in Hilborn and Mangel, The Ecological Detective.
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