Polymath - A person of wide knowledge or learning Research has become increasingly specialised - we focus on a particular discipline, then a particular field within that discipline, then a topic within that field. At the same time, knowledge is being produced at an increasingly rapid rate; IBM predicted that by 2020 world knowledge would double every 12 hours. What does this mean? Well first, it seems unlikely that a single person will ever have a wide enough knowledge base to be considered a polymath anymore.

Being able to foresee if or when something bad is going to happen has always been considered very useful as it allows for the adoption of new strategies in the hope of avoiding catastrophe or for the adaptation to the new circumstances. Applied to the context of fisheries and marine ecosystem, this means being able to predict the outcomes of actual and potential fishing regimes and environmental conditions on a particular fish stock, or an entire ecosystem, a feat that is already possible.