Okay this is not intended to be defensive, I appreciate the help. One thing, the professor is adapted from real anthropologist and the arguments are very nearly quotation. The Character is fictional but the characterization is not, nor is the condescending attitude with which a student (not myself) personally attacked in front of a class.
Those events and that attitude were the inspiration for the story, so I can't lose them. Can you suggest ways to improve the characterization, without losing the ignorance and spiteful nature of the professor?
You don't sound defensive at all, and your concern is a very valid one. Likewise, don't take what I say to be an attack - I'm just trying to be very clear and detailed.
Your characters might be based on real people, but they don't act like it. While it's true that the professor might be very condescending and spiteful in reality, the story's depiction of him seems very over-the-top. You see, there are a lot of things that go into making a person act how they do, and we don't see any of that here. All we see is an overly bitter and closed-minded man with no hint at his motivations. If you want to make these people seem like actual characters, give them motivations. Give them characteristics that the readers can identify with. As it stands, there is no characterization at all. We don't even know who the PoV is, or what his name is, until half-way through the story. Withholding the information doesn't help the story here, it makes it frustrating.
When you say that the arguments are a near quote, that worries me because both characters are very inarticulate. This is a problem because it hurts the character credibility that is being pushed on the reader. The professor may be a condescending a-hole, but he HAS to be a credible a-hole or he has no business being in his profession or being a teacher. I have a very hard time in believing that (1)the junior archeologist revolutionizes the field in 12 hours due to his willingness to accept different possibilities, then (2) the professionals in the field are ALL lazy and didn't see ANYTHING, and then just accepted the junior archeologist's hypothesis over a meeting HE called (which is a little out there as well), and finally (3) that it changed everything overnight (not very believable whether or not based on true events) and that he went from understanding to narrow-minded with no transition.
The other problem is the setting. You are writing this like it should be accepted as border-line Hard SF, but nothing in it gives us a setting that this is/isn't SF. There is no genre here. We are just being put in the middle of a college lecture.
Does that clarify at all what I was saying? Please remember that I'm not attacking you. This would all sound very good-natured in person with concern for helping you improve. I'm just very, very blunt with my opinions and views.
