Seeing through

The title of this paper is intended in the sense of both "seeing through things", which requires critical, reflexive thinking and also in the sense of "seeing things through", which requires tenacity and patience. I address some of the concerns that I have about how we think through, structure, and write about science and I introduce three major research areas that I have been involved in: (i) studies of population dynamics of fish in the Irish Sea that lead to work on plankton dynamics and marine ecosystems, but with the problems of marine policy and management in mind, (ii) the ICES/GLOBEC Cod and Climate Change programme, and (iii) global marine food production and the work of the IPCC.