The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design

 
 
A
LSO BY
W
ENDY
N
ORTHCUTT
 

The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action

The Darwin Awards 2: Unnatural Selection

The Darwin Awards 3: Survival of the Fittest

 
 

INTELLIGENT DESIGN

 
 
Wendy Northcutt
 
 

with Christopher M. Kelly

 

DUTTON

 
 
 

The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design
contains cautionary tales of misadventure. It is intended to be viewed as a safety manual, not a how-to guide. The stories illustrate evolution working through natural selection: Those whose actions have lethal personal consequences are weeded out of the gene pool. Your decisions can kill you, so pay attention and stay alive.

 

DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First electronic edition, October 2006

 

Copyright © 2006 by Wendy Northcutt
All rights reserved

 

Illustrations by Peter McDonnell

 

DARWIN AWARDS is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

 

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGINGPUBLICATION DATA
Northcutt, Wendy.
The Darwin awards 4 : intelligent design / Wendy Northcutt with Christopher M. Kelly.
p. cm.
ISBN: 0-7865-8996-5
1. Stupidity—Anecdotes. 2. Stupidity—Humor. I. Kelly, Christopher M. II. Title. III. Title: Darwin awards four. IV. Title: Intelligent design.
BF431.N675 2006
081—dc22
2006023936

 

Set in Century Old Style and Weiss
Designed by Leonard Telesca

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

 

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Websites or their content.

 
 
 

This one’s for you, babe.
*

 
 

If all else fails, Immortality
can always be assured
by spectacular error.

 

—John Kenneth Galbraith

 
Contents
 

Introduction

True intelligent design is the unerring scythe of natural selection.

CHAPTER 1
Vehicles

Motorcycles, trucks, trains, cars, snowmobiles, mopeds, a wheelchair, and one mountain bike—wheels spark a powerful urge to test mechanical limits. The stories in this chapter show that humans still have a long way to go, in evolving to cope with the ubiquitous dangers of our transportation system.

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