# Please help to identify this story **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474 "2015-10-12T20:10:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/1 "2015-10-12T20:10:24Z")
Another “Can you identify this story” thread: Science fiction short story, late 80’s, early 90’s, in an anthology devoted to ecological issues facing the world at that time. The plot is that the owner/president of a privately-held industrial coprporation dies and, after the funeral, the man that had previously been the dead man’s physician takes aside the hand-picked replacement to discuss some anomalies the physician had noticed. The physician cuts into the body to display unfamiliar organs, while explaining that the dead man had not been a man at all, he was an advance man sent to make Earth’s atmosphere into something more appropriate for his fellow beings. The dead being had purposely devoted itself to putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise the tempreature, and to adding other pollutants to the air that would make Earth more “home-like” to its fellows. Anyone else remember this? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/2 "2015-10-12T20:27:45Z")
It might be Theodore Sturgeon’s “Occam’s Scalpel.” ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/3 "2015-10-12T20:31:22Z")
“Occam’s Scalpel” by Sturgeon I think. [‘Occam’s Scalpel’ by Theodore Sturgeon | Everything Is Nice](https://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/occams-scalpel-by-theodore-sturgeon/) Published in these locations [Title: Occam's Scalpel](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?54514) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/4 "2015-10-12T21:01:48Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It might be Theodore Sturgeon’s “Occam’s Scalpel.” Oops. I didn’t see that you’d beat me to it. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/5 "2015-10-12T21:04:55Z")
Sounds like a new “Outer Limits” episode, too. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/6 "2015-10-12T21:20:54Z")
Some aspects of the plot sound like the 1996 movie _[The Arrival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arrival_(film))_, which starred Charlie Sheen. It was quite good. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/7 "2015-10-12T23:43:24Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > “Occam’s Scalpel” by Sturgeon I think. [‘Occam’s Scalpel’ by Theodore Sturgeon | Everything Is Nice](https://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/occams-scalpel-by-theodore-sturgeon/) BTW, the author of that completely missed the point of the story (and probably didn’t read the ending, which turns everything on its ear – again – and makes it clearly SF). ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/8 "2015-10-12T23:52:21Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > BTW, the author of that completely missed the point of the story (and probably didn’t read the ending, which turns everything on its ear – again – and makes it clearly SF). Thanks. I’m sure I read the Sturgeon, but it’s been decades. Hopefully the description here [SFE: Xenoforming](http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/xenoforming) is closer (though shorter)… ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-to-identify-this-story/734474/9 "2015-10-13T02:08:54Z")
It’s only in the background but the Aliens in They Live were doing that too. They mention they are trying to make “our air more like their air.”