Newport Man
Posted by: tz8cy5 <tz8cy5@...>
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.
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 that 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 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 backyard.
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 you expand 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