William Beebe - Impact of Work and Legacy

Impact of Work and Legacy

William Beebe was a pioneer in the field now known as ecology. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time, and has been highly influential. The method he invented of methodically analyzing all organisms within a small area of wilderness has become a standard method in this field. Beebe was also a pioneer in the field of oceanography, setting a precedent with his Bathysphere dives which many other researchers would follow.

E. O. Wilson, Sylvia Earle and Ernst Mayr have all described Beebe's work as an influence on their own choice of careers. Among the most significant of Beebe's influences on other researchers was Rachel Carson, who regarded Beebe as both a friend and an inspiration. Carson dedicated her 1951 book The Sea Around Us to Beebe, writing "My absorption in the mystery and meaning of the sea have been stimulated and the writing of this book aided by the friendship and encouragement of William Beebe." Due to Beebe's renewed emphasis on field research at a time when laboratory studies were becoming the dominant trend in biology, more recent field researchers such as Jane Goodall and George Schaller are also sometimes considered his intellectual descendants.

By writing for a scientific as well as popular audience, Beebe did much to make science accessible to the general public. This was particularly significant in the area of conservation, of which he was one of the most important early advocates. With his many writings about the dangers of environmental destruction, Beebe helped to raise public awareness about this topic. However, Beebe's prolific writing for a popular audience had a downside, in that other scientists of his time were reluctant to hold him in high accord because they regarded him as a popularizer.

During the course of his career, Beebe authored over 800 articles and 21 books, including his four-volume pheasant monograph. He had a total of 64 animals named after him, and himself described one new species of bird and 87 species of fish. While 83 of the fish that he described were done so in a conventional manner, the remaining four were done so based on visual observations.

A lingering controversy exists in ichthyology over the validity of the four species Beebe described on the basis of visual descriptions only, which he had observed during his Bathysphere dives. The naming of a new species ordinarily requires obtaining and analyzing a type specimen, something which was obviously impossible from inside the Bathysphere. Some of Beebe's critics claimed that these fish were illusions resulting from condensation on the Bathysphere's window, or even that Beebe willfully made them up, although the latter would have been strongly at odds with Beebe's reputation as an honest and rigorous scientist. While many of Beebe's observations from the Bathysphere have since been confirmed by advances in undersea photography, it is unclear whether others fit the description of any known sea animal. One possibility is that although these animals indeed exist, so much remains to be discovered about life in the deep ocean that these animals still have yet to be seen by anyone other than him.