More questions from my mailbox, but first an admission of guilt.  I
accidently purged my mailbox this afternoon thinking I was getting rid of
some photo files people had been kind enough to send.  Big goof.  So, if you
mailed something to me in the last three days or so, just send it again.
Sorry, but I was goofy.  Blame it on some orals I have to take next week.
 
Q: Why not call the probable mongoose hieroglyphic a ferret?
A: Because the FLO has threatened to strike.
 
Actually, not a bad question, but the answer is even better.  Because it
isn't, and saying it is, well, is unethical at best, and a down right lie at
worst.  To begin with, ferrets are mustelids and mongeese are viverids;
completely different families within the Carnivora.  While they may look
somewhat similar, and some may have strikingly similar lifeways, the
similarities are due to convergent evolutionary processes rather than a
close relationship.  Ferrets are basically domesticated polecats, and
originated in the cool and wet northern latitudes, while mongeese tend to
stick to the more dry and warm southern latitudes (generally speaking).
I've been to Egypt, and it's kind of warm and dry for the most part.  Also,
Egypt and the surrounding regions lack extant polecats, and there is _NO_
paleontological/archaeological evidence that they ever existed, but there
are ample extinct and extant moongeese, as well as mongeese mummies.
 
As for the idea that ferrets were not mentioned because of some type of
cultural ban, I doubt it.  There are thousands of years of writing, covering
several changes in religion, including a shift from polytheism to montheism
and back again.  If they were there, they would have been mentioned by
someone, if only a visitor.  Cats were noticed.
 
Think about it.  For ferrets to have been in Egypt, something would have had
to have destroyed all ferret remains, including those naturally deposited,
killed by other animals and left in den sites, and those killed or mummified
by people (Remember, a ferret/polecat can be identified by a single molar).
The climate would have to be quite different because ferrets/polecats cannot
survive in such dry environments.  All mention of ferrets would have had to
have been destroyed, or some type of cultural/religious ban would have had
to have been diligently followed for thousands of years.  No mention of
ferrets in Egypt could have been made by travelers, traders, and/or
conquerors for those same thousands of years (Remember Babylon, Israel,
Greece and Rome just for starters.) If it happened like this, it would have
been the best kept secret for the last 5000 years.  The perfect conspiracy.
 
A better explaination is given by Occam's Razor, also know as the Law of
Parsimony.  This basically states that the simplest explaination is usually
the most accurate.  On one hand, you have lots of things which _must_ have
taken place in order for the idea to be true (and not one could have been
missed or the whole argument crumbles): that is, ferrets were domesticated
by the Egyptians.  Against this you have the simple explaination that
ferrets were not there, which does not fly into the face of any facts (save
the fact that they were erroneously reported in Chuck and Fox Morton's book
as being in Egypt).
 
But what does it matter?  Why not allow the myth to proceed until we know
the truth?  Because of whom we are fighting.  I poke alot of fun at the
Ca-Ca Fish and Gestapo, implying close inbreeding and lack of bowel control,
not to mention a complete lack of neurons.  But the truth is, dispite their
stupidity, they are not dumb.  They can catch our mistakes just as easy as
we catch theirs (OK, it's harder for them, but not impossible if they hire
outside help...) If we want to argue against their inaccuracies, then we
_MUST_ be accurate, even if it means we have to say, "I not sure," or "I
don't know." And there is _NO KNOWN ORIGIN FOR THE FERRET_!  All we can
accurately say is domesticated polecats were clearly mentioned numerous
times in numerous plays by Aristophanes roughly about 450 BC.  Other than
that, they were mentioned by Strabo just after the time of Christ.  And
that's the earliest, nay, only evidence there is folks; at least until we
can get some funds to study the problem.  Any rich people out there that
want to fund me for the next few years so I can solve the problem?  A couple
of million should do.  Pocket change.  I'll be happy to send in the receipts
at tax time.
 
Mo' Bob and the 19 Parsimonous Polecats
[Posted in FML issue 1679]