The Darwin Awards illustrate Mark Twain's
observation, "Man is the only animal that
blushes -- or has reason to."

Survival of the Fittest
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 public service announcements such as, warning: coffee is hot! Darwin Award winners do not. The stories assembled in this book show that common sense is really not so common.

There are people who think it's practical to peer into a gasoline can using a cigarette lighter. There are people who throw beach parties to celebrate an approaching hurricane. We applaud the predictable demise of such daredevils with Darwin Awards, named after Charles Darwin, the father of evolution. No warning label could have prevented evolution from creeping up on the man who electrocuted fish with household current, then waded in to collect his catch without removing the wire.

Darwin Award winners plan and carry out disastrous schemes that an average 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 action ensures the long-term survival of our species, which now contains one less idiot. The single-minded purpose and self-sacrifice of the winners, and the spectacular means by which they snuff themselves, qualifies them for the honor of winning a Darwin Award.

Rules and Eligibility
To win, nominees must significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race in an astonishingly stupid way. All races, cultures, and socioeconomic groups are eligible to compete. Contenders are evaluated using the following five criteria:

The candidate must remove himself from the gene pool.

The prime tenet of the Darwin Awards is that we are celebrating 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 de facto must 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 At-Risk Survivor.

Heated philosophical discussions have sprung up around the reproduction rule. If a person or group gives up sex, are they eligible for a nomination since they are no longer willing to breed? Must the candidate be utterly incapable of reproduction? Can the elderly be ruled out because they are too old to have an impact on the gene pool? Should those who already have children be banned from winning?

These are complicated questions. For example, frozen sperm and ova are viable decades after the donor's demise, and sheep and humans can be cloned from a single cell. It is almost impossible to completely eliminate an individual's genes. And it would take a team of researchers to ferret out the full reproductive implications, a luxury the Darwin Awards lacks. Therefore, no attempt is made to determine the actual reproductive status or potential of the nominee. If he no longer has the physical wherewithal to breed with a mate on a deserted island, then he is eligible for a Darwin.

The candidate must exhibit an astounding misapplication of judgment.

We are not talking about common stupidities such as falling asleep with a lit cigarette or taking a bath with a radio. 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 harebrained scheme in motion.

The Darwin winner is seldom a copycat. The death under consideration must reflect a unique manifestation of the grave lack of sense and misapplication of judgment indicative of a genuine cleansing of the gene pool. Using bullets as fuses, reenacting the William Tell stunt, and bungee jumping with rubber bands are all worthy Darwin Award activities.

Oscar Wilde said, "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune . . . to lose both seems like carelessness." If you fry yourself along with your parents while rewiring their outdoor hot-tub during a thunderstorm, you may be eligible for a Darwin Award.

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 hapless bystander done in by a heavy anvil dropped from a skyscraper is an unfortunate tragedy. If, however, you are smashed by the anvil you rigged above your own balcony to kill those squawking pigeons, then you are a Darwin contender.

A tourist trampled to death by a rampaging bull in a parking lot is merely suffering from bad luck. If you are gored to death during the "Running of the Bulls" while riding naked in a shopping cart piloted by your drunken friend, you are a candidate for a Darwin Award.

Some feel that a person who intentionally attempts to win a Darwin Award, and succeeds, is by definition a perfect candidate. However, readers should remember that a Darwin Award is an exceedingly dubious honor, and we discourage anyone from intentionally attempting to join these illustrious ranks.

The candidate must be capable of sound judgment.

Humans are generally capable of sound judgment, except those with mental, chemical, or chronological handicaps that render them unable to fully comprehend the ramifications of their actions. That means no children, Alzheimer's disease sufferers, or Downs Syndrome patients. Child nominees are a bone of contention. A vociferous majority argues against letting them win Darwin Awards, citing the gulf between ignorance and stupidity. An equally clamorous minority contends that they are the best candidates for a "rusty chromosome" award, since they obviously have not reproduced. To muddy the ethical waters further, some children have stated that restricting them from vying for this laudable award is yet another encroachment on their civil liberties. We appreciate that parents are responsible for teaching their offspring to make responsible decisions. Therefore children are not eligible to win a Darwin Award. However, a few are included as nominees, when their actions can be considered foolhardy by even their peers.

The event must be verified.

Reputable newspaper or other published articles, confirmed television reports, and responsible eyewitnesses are considered valid sources. A friend's mother's employer, a chain email, or a doctored photograph are not.

This book contains four categories of stories.

Darwin Awards nominees lost their reproductive capacity by killing or sterilizing themselves, and this is the only category eligible to win a Darwin Award.

At-Risk Survivors are foolish misadventures that stop short of the ultimate sacrifice, but still illustrate the innovative spirit of Darwin Award candidates.

Urban Legends are cautionary tales of evolution in action, and are so popular they have become part of the Internet culture. Various versions are widely circulated, but their origins are largely unknown. They should be understood as the fables they are. Any resemblance to actual events, or to persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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 At-Risk Survivors are known or believed to be true. Look for the words Confirmed by Darwin under the title, which generally indicate that a story was backed up by multiple submissions and by more than one reputable media source.

Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution
Do the Darwin Awards really represent examples of evolution in action? In 1859 Charles Darwin revived the theory of evolution in The Origin of Species, which presented evidence that species evolve over time to fit their environments better. At that time, the theory of evolution was no longer in vogue. It had already been conceived, discussed, and discredited.

The earth was thought to be only six thousand years old, far too young to show evidence of the slow pace of evolution, and besides, there was no plausible explanation for how evolution might occur. Furthermore, many people were repelled by the notion that man descended from apes. But Darwin's careful biological observations, and his proposed mechanism for evolution, propelled the theory back into the scientific limelight.

Darwin called his mechanism for evolution "natural selection," and described four requirements that must be satisfied in order for natural selection to occur.

First, a species must show variation.

Humans exhibit this quality in abundance. There are variations in every trait you can imagine: height, eye color, emotional balance, toe length, intelligence. We also are very different on the inside. For example, the major artery from the heart may branch either before or after it leaves the left ventricle. Both variations are normal. Your liver may be large or small, your appendix present or absent at birth. Countless differences exist between even the most closely related individuals.

Second, variations must be inheritable.

Children resemble their parents. A staggering number of traits are inherited in the myriad genes we store on our chromosomes. For better or worse, parents pass their genetic strengths and weaknesses on to their offspring. Complex characteristics such as intelligence and personality are influenced by the environment, but even these traits have strong, heritable genetic components.

Third, not all individuals in a population survive to reproduce.

Charles Darwin calculated that a single pair of elephants would multiply to nineteen million in 750 years if each descendant lived 100 years and had six offspring. But the elephant population has remained fairly stable over time. Why aren't we overrun with elephants? Because most of them die without reproducing. As our population boom attests, this criterion is less obviously met by humans; nevertheless, a significant number of people die without reproducing, as the stories in this book show.

Fourth, some individuals can cope with selective pressures better than others.

Due to inherited attributes, some members of a species are more likely to survive predators and cold winters, win the competition for mates, and leave more offspring. Successful traits become more prevalent in the population, while less successful ones decline and eventually die out. The tales you will read clearly show differences in our ability to cope with the selective pressures that surround us.

Keeping these four criteria in mind, let's follow the example of a hypothetical group of humans with a single variable trait: some are taller than others. Because height is inherited, short people bear shorter children than tall people, on average. Picture these people living in a beautiful setting among branching trees and scenic cliffs. In this environment, tall people whack their heads on branches and fall over cliffs more frequently than their shorter fellows do. Therefore, short people have a survival advantage, and within a dozen generations, the population will become shorter. It should also become better at evading low branches.

History and Internet Culture
The philosophy of the Darwin Awards is a way of life. The origin of the Darwin Awards lies in the infancy of the Internet itself. Darwin Awards were one of the first email chain letters. A story was born when someone with a flair for journalism would notice an example of natural selection in his own backyard, turn it into an amusing anecdote, and send the story to friends. Friends would email friends would email friends, and those original email chains continue even today. They are fossils from the dawn of the Internet.

Some Darwin Awards are short reports based on a single newspaper clipping, such as the man who slept with a gun (foolish ingenuity: "Midnight Special") A few turn out to be clever fictions crafted by sardonic writers not content with mere facts. Surreptitiously hidden among authentic Darwin Awards, these legends are known and loved by a microgeneration of fans. Therefore they remain the winners of record, despite being debunked as indicated in the text.

Darwin winners are determined by a lengthy and subjective process. Nominees are culled from the submissions using the the five rules of death, excellence, self-selection, maturity, and veracity. They are written with an eye toward the evolutionary, and made available for public vote and comment. Thorny issues are debated in the Philosophy Forum, a process illustrated by the John F. Kennedy Jr. debate (Leaps of Faith.)

Discredited nominations are removed, and those that fare poorly in the vote are reevaluated for suitability. Community members who believe a story is misrepresented are encouraged to provide an accurate version of events, and stories earning the disapproval of family or community members may be reassessed and removed from consideration.

Chapter Links:
Origin of the JATO story: Decide for yourself.

Author Bio: Wendy Northcutt holds a degree in molecular biology from UC Berkeley. She began writing Darwin Awards in 1993, and founded the website soon thereafter.