Darwin Award: Flying Dutchman
Darwin Award: Caught in the Auger
Darwin Award: Pancake Thief
Darwin Award: All Wound Up
Darwin Award: Catapult to Glory
Darwin Award: Sizzling Scaffolding
Honorable Mention: Serbian Tsunami
Honorable Mention: Hammer Head
Honorable Mention: Oops, Did It Again
Honorable Mention: White Russians
Personal Account: Icarus
Personal Account: Hot Hot Chocolate
Personal Account: The Bigger the Better
Personal Account: Captain Magneto
Personal Account: Human Paper Towel
Personal Account: Juice Me Up!
The End of the Universe
Appendices
Website Biography
Author Biographies
Biographies of Contributors
Introduction
The title, Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design, pokes fun at the embarrassing pseudo-science of religious fundamentalists. True intelligent design is the unerring scythe of natural selection.
WHAT, ME WORRY? WHY
THERE ARE DARWIN AWARDS
The role model for the Darwin Awards is Wile E. Coyote, whose relentless pursuit of Road Runner leads him to find creative solutions to nonexistent problems, none of which work the way he planned. True Darwin Award candidates imagine that they live in a world where tigers don’t bite, sharks are as cuddly as stuffed animals,1 and people can fly with a little ingenuity.2 In their minds, steering a motorcycle with their feet just makes sense.3 In their world, it’s easy to go to the chopping block and confuse a private body part with a chicken neck.4
Benjamin Franklin once said, “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” Darwin Awards celebrate those who work the hardest. By removing themselves from the gene pool, they give their all for the good of the rest of us. To paraphrase Neil Armstrong, “That’s one small misstep for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Most of us know instinctively that the phrase “trust me, light this fuse” is a recipe for disaster. Darwin Award winners do not. Most of us have a basic common sense that eliminates the need for NO SMOKING signs at gas stations. Darwin Award winners do not. No warning label could have prevented evolution from creeping up on the homeowner who filled his house with natural gas to kill termites,5 nor the winner who tried to weld a hand grenade onto a chain.6 The stories assembled in this book show that common sense is really not so common.
There are people who think it’s practical to solder an acetylene tank to a steel roof.7 There are people who top off their car’s brake fluid with dishwashing liquid.8 We applaud the predictable demise of such daredevils with the Darwin Award, named after Charles Darwin, the father of evolution.
Darwin Awards show what happens to people who are bewilderingly unable to cope with obvious dangers in the modern world. The smoker who can’t wait for the next stop and steps out of the bus to light up—at sixty miles an hour.9 The father who shoots himself while proving that his son’s instructor doesn’t understand gun safety.10 The camper with too much gear who stashes a propane tank in his car’s engine compartment!11
Darwin Award winners plan and carry out disastrous schemes that a child can tell are a really bad idea. They contrive to eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an extraordinarily idiotic manner that their actions ensure the long-term survival of our species, which now contains fewer idiots. The single-minded purpose and self-sacrifice of each winner, and the spectacular means by which he snuffs himself, qualifies him for the dubious honor of winning a Darwin Award.
THE RULES
To win, nominees must significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race in an astonishingly stupid way. Contenders are evaluated using the following five criteria:
Reproductive Dead End: The candidate must remove himself from the gene pool.
The Darwin Awards celebrate the self-removal of incompetent genetic material from the human race. The potential winner must therefore render himself deceased, or at least incapable of reproducing. If someone does manage to survive an incredibly stupid feat, then his genes ipso facto have something to offer in the way of luck, agility, or stamina. He is therefore not eligible for a Darwin Award, though sometimes the story is too entertaining to pass up and he earns an Honorable Mention.
The Darwin Awards community has engaged in interminable and ultimately inconclusive discussions about what it means to be removed from the gene pool. What if the winner has already reproduced; is it sufficient that she can make no further contributions? What if the nominee has an identical twin? Are women past childbearing age disqualified? What about cryogenics, which makes it possible for sperm and ova to outlive their donors? Cloning might eventually allow those who die from licking poisonous toads to reproduce posthumously, with disastrous effects on future generations!
It would take a team of researchers to ferret out the full reproductive implications of each nominee—a luxury Ms. Darwin lacks. Therefore, no attempt is made to determine the actual reproductive potential of the candidate. If you no longer have the physical wherewithal to breed with a mate on a desert isle, then you are eligible for a Darwin Award.
Excellence: The candidate must exhibit an astounding misapplication of judgment.
We are not talking about common stupidities such as forgetting soup on the stove, leaving the iron on, or jumping off the garage roof into a deep pile of leaves. The fatal act must be of such idiotic magnitude that we shake our heads and thank our lucky stars that our descendants won’t have to deal with, or heaven forbid breed with, descendants of the buffoon that set that scheme in motion.
Baking bullets in an oven,1 looking inside a rocket launcher,2 clubbing chickens with the butt of a loaded gun,3 jamming your head into a paper-towel dispenser,4 and grabbing defibrillator paddles5 while shouting, “Juice me up!” are are all worthy Darwinian activities.
Self-selection: The candidate must be the cause of his own demise.
The candidate’s own gross ineptitude must be the cause of the incident that earns him the nomination. A driver hit by a falling tree is a victim of circumstance. If you chain the tree to your pickup and pull it over onto yourself,6 you are a candidate for a Darwin Award.
Some think that a person who intentionally attempts to win a Darwin Award—and succeeds—is by definition a perfect candidate. However, I do not want to encourage risk-taking behavior, so anyone who purposely tries to join these illustrious ranks is automatically disqualified.
Maturity: The candidate must be capable of sound judgment.
People with physical or mental handicaps are more susceptible to doing themselves harm. Their deaths are not amusing, because their increased risk comes from an innate impediment, rather than poor decisions. Those who lack maturity are therefore not eligible for an award.
Children (typically below the age of sixteen) do not qualify, as their judgment has not fully developed. They do not possess sufficient maturity and experience to make life-or-death judgments, and the responsibility for their safety still resides with their guardians.
The maturity rule is not a foolproof way to duck a Darwin Award. For instance, if a person duct-tapes his wheelchair7 to the back of a pickup truck—without securing himself to the wheelchair—he is eligible for a Darwin Award when he is tossed off while rounding a sharp corner. Or if a bar patron impairs his judgment by drinking copiously before accepting a bar bet, he is eligible for a Darwin Award when he can’t remove the condom full of beer8 from his esophagus.
Veracity: The event must be verified.
Reputable newspaper or other published articles, confirmed television reports, and responsible eyewitnesses are considered valid sources. Your brother’s friend’s boss, a chain email, or a doctored photograph are not.
THE CATEGORIES
This book contains three categories of stories.
&n
bsp; Darwin Awards nominees lost their reproductive capacity by killing or sterilizing themselves. This is the only category eligible to win a Darwin Award.
Honorable Mentions are foolish misadventures that stop short of the ultimate sacrifice, but still illustrate the innovative spirit of Darwin Award candidates. We have changed names and obscured some details in these stories, to preserve a measure of anonymity for the participants.
Personal Accounts were submitted by loyal readers blowing the whistle on stupidity, and are plausible but usually unverified narratives. In some cases readers submitting Personal Accounts have been identified with their permission, but this does not necessarily mean that the sources are directly associated with their Personal Accounts.
Darwin Awards and Honorable Mentions are known or believed to be true. Look for the words “Confirmed by Darwin” under the title, which generally indicates that a story has been backed up by multiple submissions and by more than one reputable media source.
“Unconfirmed by Darwin” indicates fewer credible submissions and the unavailability of direct confirmation of media sources. In unconfirmed Darwin Awards, names have often been changed and details altered to protect the innocent (and, for that matter, the guilty).
PICKING THE WINNERS
Contenders are selected based on the five criteria of death, self-selection, excellence, maturity, and veracity. But there’s more to the selection than one person making a dry comparison with the rules. The selection is a participatory event, a community celebration of the humor found in the inevitable results of foolish choices! Here’s how the entire process works.
Submission
A Darwin Award begins its life as a submission to the website. The nominations come from around the world. Enthusiasts are encouraged to keep a sharp lookout for potential contenders in their neighborhoods and local newspapers. Amusingly written stories are more likely to pass the triple hurdles of moderation, public vote, and Wendy’s review.
Moderator Review
Each submission is reviewed by volunteer moderators who decide whether it’s a potential Darwin Award, Honorable Mention, or Personal Account. Two to five moderators examine each story before it’s moved to the public Slush Pile. Submissions that don’t make the cut are usually repeats, bizarre or macabre stories, or illustrations of poetic justice, rather than examples of Darwinian self-selection.
As the graph illustrates, an average of five hundred stories are submitted per month, and approximately one in six is accepted into the Slush Pile. When a particularly sensational story appears in the news, it can be submitted hundreds of times. The spike in January 2003 was due to the shooting death of a man who decided to beat his misbehaving dog with a loaded gun. The spike in July 2002 was caused by two men fighting over who would go to heaven and who to hell; a shotgun was used to solve the argument.
January 2005 brought the story of the handstand queen.9 February 2006 featured a disappointed rugby fan who snipped off his own testicles with wire cutters. And in May 2005, two Star Wars acolytes constructed “light sabres” by filling fluorescent tubes with petrol. The chasm of zero submissions is from the Infamous Hacker Attack of Thanksgiving 2003.
Public Review
The stories, with moderator scores and comments appended, are transferred to the website, and the submitter is notified by email. The decision may be appealed; however, the moderators are fairly experienced, so decisions are only infrequently reversed. A submission will occasionally be removed for privacy reasons, or if it is the cause of many complaints.
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Readers rate the stories in the Slush Pile on a scale from 0 to 10. Your vote counts!
www.DarwinAwards.com/slush
* * *
Wendy’s Review
After at least a month of public review, I sort the Slush Pile based on popularity and begin reading through the submissions for that month. I refer to the moderator comments and decide whether each story is novel enough, and amusing enough, to write into a Darwin Award, Honorable Mention, or Personal Account. Approximately ten to fifteen stories per month are selected to enter the permanent archive.
The Final Cut
But that’s not the end of the process! In fact, it’s a new beginning, for stories in the archive enjoy a far greater audience than when they first appeared in the Slush Pile. Visitors read five million stories per month, and mistakes, corrections, and confirmations are frequently reported. The Darwin Awards are continually updated (or removed) based on new information, and this final review process continues for as long as the story remains on the website.
The accounts in this book have all been subject to this public scrutiny and are accurate to the best of my knowledge. But because the Darwin Awards are dynamic, they are not guaranteed to be entirely accurate, nor in their final form.
As you read the tales contained herein, keep in mind the lengthy submission process, as well as the care with which each gem was culled from dozens of competitors and honed to its current form.
HISTORY OF THE DARWIN AWARDS
The origin of the first Darwin Award is obscure.
I fancifully hypothesized that the collective processing power of connected computers that formed the early Internet gave rise to an electronic consciousness, and that the Darwin Awards were this artificial life-form’s first successful attempt at humor. But recently, more information has come to light.
According to Google’s Usenet archives, the first citation in August 1985 referred to the fellow who pulled a soda machine onto himself while trying to shake loose a free can. The second citation was five years later, when the Urban Legend of the JATO Rocket Car surfaced. The author of that Usenet posting, Paul Vixie, credited Charles Haynes. I didn’t know how to contact Paul Vixie, or who he was. Along came Greg Lindahl, who opined, “Paul Vixie? Everybody knows who he is, he maintains BIND, which holds the Internet together.” So Greg wrote Paul an email. Paul, a consummate pack rat, produced a 1991 email from Charles Haynes in which Charles said that he heard the term from Bob Ayers: “We normally sit around talking about Darwin Awards after a hard day’s rock climbing. I wonder why…” At that point, the trail grew cold. Greg followed a few more leads, but was unable to track down earlier Darwin Awards.
My involvement with the Darwin Awards began in 1993. My cousin Ian emailed me one, and the tongue-in-cheek look at human evolution amused and tickled my scientific funny bone. I wanted more! But I could only find five, and tracing the Darwin Awards to their lair proved fruitless.
In 1993, I began writing new vignettes for my website as a hobby. I sent out newsletters, encouraged submissions, discussions, and voting. My hobby became a consuming passion, as I assumed the alter ego “Darwin” and debated philosophy with readers. These conversations led to the refinement of the concept of a Darwin Award.
I let the Darwin Awards grow under the guidance of the readers. I pruned stories when they told me my judgment was flawed; for instance, if the deceased was the victim of a bizarre accident rather than his own poor judgment. We argued fine points such as whether offspring or advanced age ruled out a candidate. And through the years, I protected my audience from submissions that would make a hardened criminal cringe! I said NO to pictures of gory accidents, sad tales of impoverished people, politically biased stories, racial stereotypes, and just plain mean submissions.
And I dealt with flames sympathetically. When community or family members wrote, I respectfully listened to their point of view. Our discussions sometimes led to that particular story being removed. Other times, the family realized that their tragedy could have the small solace of helping others avoid the same mistake, if they let it be used as a “safety lesson.”
Part of the success of the Darwin Awards lies in the fact that we see a little of ourselves in every story. As one of the world’s biggest klutzes, my final hour will likely find me clutching a Darwin Award. If so, I know my family and friends will laugh through their tears, and say, “That’s just like Wendy. Oh, she was suc
h an idiot!”
In 2000, my passion for this once-obscure Internet humor led to the publication of the first Darwin Awards book. And now The Darwin Awards Movie has been produced, starring Joseph Fiennes and Winona Ryder. But the heart and soul of the Darwin Awards is still on the Internet.
All the stories are available free on the website, updated with facts and comments from readers. The Slush Pile is brimming with new submissions. My goal is to maintain a network of people who love the Darwin Awards, and to keep this cultural icon true to its origins.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design Page 2