We have it in our library, but I haven’t read it.
Oh, that’s fascinating too. Thomas Condon was the one that started this idea of interpreting science to the public. Thomas Condon gave talks to the people down on the beach, you know, in Newport. And we have pictures of him lecturing the whole group of people on the geology. Thomas Condon and the Two Islands, you remember, that was the name of his first book on Oregon geology. Warren D. Smith caught that from Condon and Warren D. Smith’s students have carried this idea on of interpreting geology to the public. I was the president of the National Association of Geology Teachers one year, because I was interested in this sort of geology teaching and interpretation of geology. I got the award for being the outstanding teacher for 1972. It’s called the Neil Miner Award; it’s given every year to an outstanding teacher in geology.
Do you think we’re too specialized now?
More and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing?! Yes! Well, we need generalists; we need people like well, the British. They are a lot better at that than we are in generalizing, but we have a few people like Gould. We need more people like Gould. And the astronomer, Sagan. And we need a lot of those, because this is a technical world, a scientific world, and how can we vote if we don’t know the problems. For instance, this hassle about the spotted owl. It’s too bad they had to pick on one organism because it’s the whole ecology that counts, not just the spotted owl. It’s all the different organisms that live in those old forests. This is one thing that really frightens me is the way we’re ruining Oregon and Washington and the northwest. Why, you take a flight over, they’ve even clear-cut 25% of the Bull Run preserve which was supposed to not be touched at all. And we’re having to fight like black death to keep them from logging off more of it.
When did you meet Howell Williams for the first time?
Well, he was at Berkeley when I went down there. And I took everything he had to offer, because I came from volcano country, you know. So I took everything he had to offer. He was a great old guy and a lot of fun!
He was doing his field work at the same time….
That’s right, he was there.
