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<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>The story behind the letter below is that there
is this nutball in Newport,<BR>RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of
his backyard and sends the<BR>stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute,
labeling them with scientific<BR>names, insisting that they are actual
archaeological finds. This guy<BR>really exists and does this in his spare
time!<BR><BR>Anyway...here's the actual response from the Smithsonian
Institution. Bear<BR>this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your
duty to respond<BR>to a difficult situation in
writing.<BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>Smithsonian
Institute<BR>207 Pennsylvania Avenue<BR>Washington, DC 20078<BR><BR>Dear Mr.
Williams:<BR><BR>Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled
"93211-D,<BR>layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid
skull." We have given<BR>this specimen a careful and detailed
examination, and regret to inform you<BR>that we disagree with your theory that
it represents conclusive proof of<BR>the presence of Early Man in Charleston
County two million years ago.<BR><BR>Rather, it appears that what you have found
is the head of a Barbie doll,<BR>of the variety that one of our staff, who has
small children, believes to<BR>be "Malibu Barbie." It is evident
that you have given a great deal of<BR>thought to the analysis of this specimen,
and you may be quite certain<BR>hat<BR>those of us who are familiar with your
prior work in the field were loathe<BR>to come to contradiction with your
findings.<BR><BR>However, we do feel that there are a number of physical
attributes of the<BR>specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern
origin:<BR><BR>1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains
are typically<BR>fossilized bone.<BR>2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is
approximately 9 cubic<BR>centimeters, well below the threshold of even the
earliest identified<BR>proto-homonids.<BR>3. The dentition pattern evident on
the skull is more consistent with the<BR>common domesticated dog than it is with
the ravenous man-eating Pliocene<BR>clams you speculate roamed the wetlands
during that time.<BR><BR>This latter finding is certainly one of the most
intriguing hypotheses you<BR>have submitted in your history with this
institution, but the evidence<BR>seems to weigh rather heavily against it.
Without going into too much<BR>detail, let us say that:<BR>A. The specimen looks
like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed<BR>on.<BR>B. Clams don't
have teeth.<BR><BR>It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny
your request<BR>to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due
to the heavy<BR>load<BR>our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly
due to<BR>carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic
record.<BR>To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to
1956<BR>AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate
results.<BR><BR>Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the
National<BR>Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of
assigning your<BR>specimen the scientific name Australopithecus
spiff-arino. Speaking<BR>personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for
the acceptance of your<BR>proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down
because the species name<BR>you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound
like it might be Latin.<BR><BR>However, we gladly accept your generous donation
of this fascinating<BR>specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not
a Hominid fossil, it<BR>is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the
great body of work<BR>you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You
should know that<BR>our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office
for the display<BR>of the specimens you have previously submitted to the
Institution, and the<BR>entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen
upon next in your<BR>digs at<BR>the site you have discovered in your Newport
back yard. We eagerly<BR>anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that
you proposed in your<BR>last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director
to pay for it. We<BR>are<BR>particularly interested in hearing youexpand
on your theories surrounding<BR>the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous
ions in a structural matrix<BR>that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus
rex femur you recently<BR>discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty
9-mm Sears<BR>Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.<BR><BR>Yours in
Science,<BR>Harvey Rowe<BR>Chief Curator
-Antiquities<BR></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>