The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design (3 page)

T
he 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.

T
HE
R
ULES

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 paddles
⁵
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 wheelchair
⁷
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 beer
⁸
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.

T
HE
C
ATEGORIES

This book contains three categories of stories.

• 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).

P
ICKING THE
W
INNERS

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. Amus
ingly 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.

 

Readers rate the stories in the Slush Pile on a scale from 0 to 10. Your vote counts!

 

 

www.DarwinAwards.com/slush