Charles D. Walcott

Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850 – February 9, 1927) was an American paleontologist,[1] administrator of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, and geologist.[2] He is famous for his discovery in 1909 of well-preserved fossils, including some of the oldest soft-part imprints, in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada. He was described by Stephen Jay Gould as "the finest symbol that I have ever encountered for the embodiment of conventional beliefs