Talk:William Beebe

Tetrapteryx and Microraptor

Among people who follow paleontology, one of the things that William Beebe is most known for is the fact that he correctly hypothesized in a 1915 Zoologica paper that flight in birds evolved through a four-winged gliding stage; a stage which has been discovered within the past decade in fossils such as Microraptor gui. (The Microraptor article mentions this.) I don't think mentioning Beebe's successful prediction about bird evolution in this article would be synth, because this fact about him is discussed by several reliable sources such as this article in Scientific American and this paper in Nature. Does anyone here have an opinion about whether this piece of information about Beebe is notable enough to include in the article? --Captain Occam (talk) 08:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please! This is indeed notable and gives some idea of how far ahead of his time Beebe really was. If you can access the Nature article for the passage referring to Beebe, could you please quote it here for us all to read. Thank you so much for bringing this up - I think it will make a really important addition to the article. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 11:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It took a little while for me to find this, but here’s the part of the Nature paper that discusses Beebe:

“In a colorful and prescient paper of 1915, however, William Beebe proposed that avian flight evolved through a gliding, four-winged—tetrapteryx—stage with wing feathers on both the arms and the legs. Now Xu and colleagues describe a small dromaeosaur, Microraptor gui, that sports four wings of fully modern, asymmetrical feathers on its forelimbs and legs, and looks as if it could have glided straight out of the pages of Beebe’s notebooks.”

I’m pretty sure this paper is what the Scientific American article is quoting. Two other papers that appear to discuss Microraptor gui as confirming Beebe’s prediction are this one and this one. I’ll see if I can get access to those also, if you like. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for the prompt research. Yes, I think this is all of real relevance and Beebe certainly deserves credit! I don't have access to on-line journals like many university students and staff do - so I really appreciate everything you are digging up. If you can get hold of the info for free - please do share it. Now, you got onto this first so please write it up, though I am happy to help any way I can, if you wish. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 03:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get access to the other two papers. Citing the Nature paper ought to be enough for us to to talk about his Tetrapteryx prediction in this article, though, shouldn’t it? --Captain Occam (talk) 16:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much for doing all the hard work. I have tidied the new paragraphs here and in the Microraptor gui article slightly - I hope you approve. I do think that it is important and interesting that Beebe's theory has been so completely supported by modern finds. Oh, and yes, I do think two journals of such high standing and references to others is quite sufficient referencing. Good work, mate. Many thanks. John Hill (talk) 08:35, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I may do some more work on the article at some point in the future. There are some other aspects of Beebe's work that seem like they probably ought to be covered in more detail, such as his deep-sea exploration. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed! I would be most grateful. I am so thrilled to see my old mentor receive more attention. He was a unique, inspirational and exceptional man in many ways, and did so much to increase our knowledge of the world and respect for nature, and never forgot the need to interpret science clearly so that ordinary people could appreciate its glories. Cheers, 05:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Sources to use?

I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven’t forgotten about this article. I haven’t had much time to work it recently because I’ve been involved in an arbitration case about an unrelated article, but that case should be closed sometime within the next day or so.

In the meantime, I’m currently reading Carol Grant Gould’s biography of William Beebe, and after I’ve finished this book I intend to do a significant rewrite the article based on it. I would appreciate it if anyone (John Hill?) could point me to any other sources they recommend using for this article. I may also purchase this book, but it appears to focus almost exclusively on Beebe’s deep-sea exploration, and it would be useful to find more sources that talk about some of his other work. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Personal life

My current plan for this article is to incorporate the information about Beebe’s personal life into the sections discussing his work, modeled after the way Carol Grant Gould’s biography of him is divided up. I think the article will flow better that way, because the two often influenced one another in unexpected ways. For example, his marriage to Elswyth Thane is one of the things that influenced his beginning to work in Bermuda, leading to his Bathysphere expeditions. But this’ll be difficult to explain if his personal life isn’t described in the same section as his work.

I know that the current structure of the article is difficult to understand, because I’m right in the middle of rewriting it, and there are several major sections I’m intending it to have that I haven’t added at all yet. This is why I have the “under construction” template there. But before people start moving material that I’ve added to new sections, I would appreciate it if they could wait until I’m finished rewriting the article, so they can see the structure I’m planning in its finished state. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Main image in article lead

I recently uploaded an image of William Beebe to Wikimedia Commons that I think might be worth using as the main image of him in the lead section of the article. However, before I do this I'd like to make sure that John Hill, who added the image currently being used there, doesn't mind his image being replaced with the one I've uploaded. The reason I think this image would be preferable over John Hill's is because it shows only Beebe himself and is a front view, rather than being a side view of Beebe along with two other people.

I think in an article about an individual, it's best for the main photograph of them to be one that displays that individual as prominently as possible. This is also a very famous photograph of Beebe: for example, Carol Grant Gould's biography of him has this image on its cover.

If I replace John Hill's image with this one, I don't intend to remove his image from the article permanently. After I've finished writing the summary of the rest of Beebe's life, I intend to add images related to each part of his life to the relevant parts of the article, and I'll probably be including this one in the part that discusses his work at Simla late in his life. I don't think it should be the one at the top of the article, though. John Hill, is it all right if I put the image I've uploaded there instead? --Captain Occam (talk) 06:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Definately! What a great photo! The one I have is just an old one I or my mother took a long time ago at Simla in Trinidad. I would like to still see it used in the article, though, if possible - especially as it shows Jocelyn Crane, his long time colleague and dear friend who did so much to help him in later life and also to help get the Asa Wright Centre functioning. I also have other photos of him - one with his second wife - see the article on Elswyth Thane - and a couple of others - but none so interesting as the one you have found. And thanks for all your great additions and editing. Great work! Cheers, John Hill (talk) 03:25, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I definitely intend to use your mother’s photograph in the article—as I said, I’ll probably be using it in the section that talks about his work at Simla. Since I haven’t written that section yet, though, I guess I can leave this photograph at the top of the article for now. After I’ve written the Simla section, I’ll move your mother’s photograph to that section, and make the photograph that I just uploaded the article’s main image of him.

If you have any other photographs of William Beebe that you can release under a creative commons license, I would definitely appreciate you uploading them. Any photographs of him published before 1923 are public domain by now, but it’s probably going to be a lot more difficult to find photographs related to his later work that are under the right license to be used in this article. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi again! Unfortunately, so far I have only been able to find one more old photo of Dr. Beebe (we used to have many - I will have another search through old albums when I visit my mother and sister in Vancouver in May this year). It shows him with my father 'Ted' Hill who was not only his personal physician during the last few years of his life, but they were both close friends. I have uploaded it to the article but it may not be appropriate to keep it there as there may well be others of more interest. However it is a good clear shot of Will in his later years (as I remember him). Please feel free to remove it from the article if you feel that the earlier one with Jocelyn Crane is enough from this period. At least it should remain in Wikimedia Commons for reference or later use. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 08:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:William Beebe/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sasata (talk) 23:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this article. Should have comments up within a few days. Sasata (talk) 23:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for offering to review it. Go ahead and post your comments whenever you’re ready, but I should mention that I’m going to be pretty busy this week, so I might not have the opportunity to respond until the weekend. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Comments: This is a very well-written, well-sourced, and interesting article; I quite enjoyed it. Is this headed to FAC? I have a few minor quibbles and suggestions:

I am hoping to get this article up to FA status eventually, but it should be a GA first. I've followed most of your suggestions, but there was one that I disagreed with (about John Tee-Van), and there was also one (converting units to metric) that I wasn't sure how to do properly. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• could we include the year of publication for A Monograph of the Pheasants in the lead? I get the feeling that the second paragraph needs a date reference somewhere and this would be a convenient place to put it

Done. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• suggested wikilinks (feel free to disagree): honorary doctorate, pen name, wildlife conservation, monograph, Galápagos Island, New York Times, tropical ecology, depression, steam yacht, Arcturus (steamship) (if it's the same one used by Beebe), jaguars, tapirs, sloths

Two of these (honorary doctorate and steam yacht) were already linked. I've added links for all of the others except Arcturus (steamship), because I'm pretty sure that's not the same ship used by Beebe. That article is about a ship which was in service in Northern Europe, while the ship used by Beebe was used to explore the Galápagos Islands. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:49, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• some low-value links that could probably be removed: China, Japan, United States, London, television, tennis, cinema (there's probably a few more too)

I got rid of those. Let me know if there are any others you think I should remove. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:58, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• "With Roosevelt's help, he secured a post training American pilots on Long Island." Training them in what? The next paragraph suggests that he was a pilot, but this hasn't been mentioned previously.

I added some detail to clarify this. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• should that double hyphen in the Jungle Peace quote be a dash?

Fixed. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• newly-created, -opened, and -established do not require hyphens per wp:HYPHEN

Fixed. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:10, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• "… was the last letter that Roosevelt ever wrote before his death."

Fixed. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• 250-foot; 25-acre; eight-mile square, two miles; 3,028 feet; 100 miles west -> add convert to metric

I changed a few of these using the ft to m and mi to km templates. I'm uncertain how to do this for the rest of them, though. I'm not aware of a template for converting square miles to square kilometers, or converting acres to whatever is the metric equivalent of acres; is it necessary to convert all of those manually? Also, the ft to m template always uses the word "feet", but when the article is describing "a 250-foot steam yacht", using the word "feet" wouldn't be proper grammar. This is the first time I've done unit conversions in an article here, so I'd appreciate some help/advice on how to do it properly. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:50, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• Try {{convert|10|sqmi|km2}} to give the output 10 square miles (26 km²). To give a unit in an adjectival form, use the parameter |adj=on, e.g. "a 250-foot (76 m) steam yacht". Sasata (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've changed all of those things now. Please let me know if there's a better metric unit than square kilometers for converting acres into. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• "Tee-van" is mentioned in the "Haiti and Bermuda" subsection, but the details of who he is isn't given until later.

I don't think it's a problem the way this currently is. The first time that the article mentions John Tee-Van is in the seventh paragraph of the "Galápagos expedition" section, where it says that he's Beebe's assistant. So if someone is reading this article from beginning to end, they will already know that Tee-Van is Beebe's assistant before they get to the "Haiti and Bermuda" section. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:23, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• Fair enough. Sasata (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• image captions that are not complete sentences do not require a fullstop (per WP:Caption)

Fixed, I think. If I understand this guideline correctly, the only caption which should end in a period (I call it that because I live in the U.S.) is the one for the Covarrubias ilustration, because that's the only caption which uses complete sentences. Is that correct? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:02, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• Correct. Sasata (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• there's some inconsistency with sentence case/title case for book titles in the references

I think I've fixed the problems with this now. Something I should mention is that some amount of inconsistency is just inherent to the sources themselves. For example, if you look at the three paleontology papers being cited that discuss Microraptor gui, all of them have only the first word in the title capitalized [1] [2] [3], so it isn't a mistake that the references section does this also. Similarly, if you look at the information about Beebe's books at Archive.org, the word "company" is capitalized in "Harcourt, Brace and Company" but not in "Henry Holt and company". Your guess is as good as mine what the reason for that is, but I think it's best to handle capitalization the same way that the sources themselves handle it. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, I changed the reference for Rudder's book (The Old House and the Dream) to use capitals for multiple words in its title in order to be consistent with the other books, but this is a case that I'm really not sure about, because it contradicts the way the source itself does it. If you look at the book's cover here, you can see that the book itself does not capitalize any word of its title other than the first one. When Wikipedia is citing this book, do you think it's appropriate for articles here to handle capitalization in the book's title differently from how the book itself does? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, it's preferable to have the display of source titling consistent within the article. Strictly following the usage of the sources inevitably leads to a mixture of capitalization styles. Remember, the references are there to help the reader verify the information for themselves; it will make no difference whatsoever in their search (be it internet-based or going to a physical library) if we give them the title in sentence case or title case, so it makes sense to have a consistent presentation here. In the taxa articles I write, I often use early 20th-century journal articles that have the titles in ALL-CAPITALS, without the species names italicized; these get changed to be consistent with whatever capitalization format I'm using in the article. Sasata (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I changed the citations for Beebe's books to have the word "company" capitalized in the publisher information for all three of them, and I'd already changed the title of Rudder's book to be capitalized in the same way as the other books. Is the references section acceptable the way I have it now? Something to keep in mind is that I think it's fairly typical for peer-reviewed papers to only have the first word of the title capitalized, so the fact that this is done for the paleontology papers being cited but not for the books is just reflective of the fact that these are different types of sources. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:01, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. In FACs that I've written, I use title case for book titles, but sentence case for journal article (or chapters within books) for the same reason. Sasata (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• Retrieval dates aren't needed for convenience links to print-based sources, like PDFs, archive.org, or Google Books links

Fixed. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• Everything looks great: the article complies with the MoS, prose is excellent, coverage is broad, and the images all check out. I spot-checked a few of the citations for verification, with no issues. I'd be interested in seeing a list of species he authored, but the article is already a good length, so that information is probably more appropriate for a separate list article. The article clearly meets or exceeds the GA criteria, so I will promote it now. Cheers, Sasata (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I might at some point create a separate William Beebe bibliography article listing his books and best-known papers, although that would probably end up being kind of derivative of Berra’s 1977 book about Beebe, which is basically the same thing. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hey, I'm not familiar with wikipedia editing, but I think someone vandalized this page, see the All The Drugs William Beebee did in his lifetime section. 212.115.201.66 (talk) 13:53, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

fixed - thanks for the note. Vsmith (talk) 14:38, 26 November 2019 (UTC)