Experts to the Rescue

Schmucks:

Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves behind. While actual archaeologists like the guy and his movies, they wouldn't necessarily want to work alongside him on a dig.

I think they secretly envy him.

Link via Anwyn.

Comments

[Mike Austin]

Dear Isaac:

Of course they envy Indiana. So did I, way back when the first movie came out. I was 28, and what I saw on the screen simply astounded me. I thought, “Man, I could that stuff!” So it was Indiana Jones that led me to spend 14 years in South and Central America, wandering alone through Andes and jungles---sometimes for weeks. I never found a crystal skull, but I was present at the opening of a Mayan tomb at Dos Pilas in 1989 and I looked for a lost city in Honduras. Along the way there were animal encounters, a kidnapping, near shipwrecks and an entire host of diseases.

I thank Indiana Jones for all that.

Now at 54 my time in the wilds south of the Rio Grande might be coming to an end. But after seeing the new Indiana Jones movie I might get that old fever again. Besides, once staying with some gold miners in the Honduran jungles I heard tales of a monkey god of gold somewhere in the forests of the Mosquito Coast. I would like to look for the thing.

http://www.thereturnofscipio.com/?p=846
http://www.thereturnofscipio.com/?p=836

[MikeT]

Of course they envy him. He makes the profession look sexy, but on the other hand, by putting it up on the pedestal, he brings focus on the nerds involved and makes them look bad.