Regan Myriam Lee writes:
"...forgive me for my ignorance, but *why* is the Harrison Ford character
"Indianna Jones" considered a "bad" scientist?"

I remember going to see "Indianna Jones and the Last Crusade" with the rest
of the crew when I was in archaeological field school.  Don't get me wrong-
I love those movies, but we laughed through the whole thing.  If my memory
serves me correctly, didn't he stomp through a bunch of skeletons just before
setting their tomb on fire?  Or maybe it was the bad guys who started the fire.
Anyway, *real* archaeologists carefully measure and map *every* object they
find; they don't just stomp through everything else to get to the "good stuff."
I never saw Indy with a tape measure or a notebook.  I don't think I ever even
saw him with a trowel!  Ostensibly, archaeologists are looking for the
information that objects can give them, they're not hunting for buried
treasure.  For a more accurate depiction of the archaeological method you
might check out the "Calvin and Hobbes" strip in which Calvin concludes that
"Archaeology is the most mind-numbingly boring job on the planet."  Sometimes
it is. :)

Linda Seguin
Science Library
University of Georgia