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Science 7 November 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5647, p. 991
DOI: 10.1126/science.1090808
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Essays on Science and Society

Also see the archival list of the Essays on Science and Society.

PERCEPTIONS OF SCIENCE:
Deep-Sea Biology: Living with the Endless Frontier

Robert Kunzig

The beginnings of deep-sea biology in the 19th century illustrate an occupational hazard faced by many scientists: the temptation to tame a vast frontier by denying its vastness or its interest. In his essay, Kunzig describes how Edward Forbes gave deep-sea biology its initial impetus by claiming that nothing lived on the deep-sea floor at all. C. Wyville Thomson, leader of the Challenger expedition, proved Forbes wrong--but then shifted the "azoic zone" to the middle depths of the ocean. Most of the seafloor and the middle depths remain unexplored today.

R. Kunzig is the author of Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science (Norton, New York, 2000). E-mail: robert.kunzig{at}wanadoo.fr

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)