The

Other Side

of the Medal

A Paleobiologist Reflects

on

the Art and Serendipity of Science

Everett C. Olson

Professor of Zoology Emeritus

University of California

Los Angeles, California

The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company

Blacksburg, Virginia

1990

 

Everett C. Olson (ca. 1986)

Dedication

To all of those graduate students who worked with me during the past 50 years; whose brilliance, challenges, knowledge and irreverence guided my intellectual growth and kept me young in mind; whose strong arms, willing backs and walking legs made possible our explorations, collecting and excavating of fossil vertebrates when found; who have gone forward to productive careers in their own fields and of their own choices.

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Preface

1       The Permian and I

2       The Arroyo Formation, Coffee Creek and Ernest

3       Eyes West — to Younger Beds

4       Ignorant Ridge — the Vale and Choza Formations

5       Land, Weather and Dogs

6       The San Angelo Formation — and a Look Backwards

7       Eyes to the East

8       Impressions — Efremov, Museum, Friends

9       Efremov — the Man

10              Efremov, Science and Philosophy

11   Frivolity, Dialectical Materialism and Science

12              The Other Side of the Medal

13              Books, Writings and Ideals

14              What of Dreams — Now?

Index

ix

1

17

27

37

51

63

79

97

111

119

129

147

161

173

181