Sinister: Joke stuff here... warning absolutely no B+S content

[Keith Watson]

Some of you may well have seen this as I suspect it's been on humour newsgroups, but I thought it was dead funny and feel it should be shared.

The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in Newport,
RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his backyard and sends the
stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific
names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds.  This guy
really exists and does this in his spare time!

Anyway...here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institution. Bear
this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your duty to respond
to a difficult situation in writing.

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Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D,
layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull."  We have given
this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you
that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of
the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.

Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll,
of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to
be "Malibu Barbie."  It is evident that you have given a great deal of
thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain
hat
those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe
to come to contradiction with your findings.

However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the
specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic.  Ancient hominid remains are typically
fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
proto-homonids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the
common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene
clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you
have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence
seems to weigh rather heavily against it.  Without going into too much
detail, let us say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed
on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request
to have the specimen carbon-dated.  This is partially due to the heavy
load
our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to
carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.
To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956
AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National
Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your
specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino.  Speaking
personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your
proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name
you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating
specimen to the museum.  While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it
is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work
you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.  You should know that
our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display
of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the
entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your
digs at
the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard.  We eagerly
anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your
last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it.  We
are
particularly interested in hearing youexpand on your theories surrounding
the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix
that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently
discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears
Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator -Antiquities

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