Darwin Awards

A Darwin Award is an honor given to people who supposedly help to improve the human gene pool by "removing themselves from it in a spectacularly stupid manner". The prizes are named in honor of the evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin, and are awarded over the World Wide Web and frequently distributed via email. There is no monetary or material prize associated with the Darwin Award, only infamous recognition.

Related Topics:
Human - Gene pool - Evolution - Theorist - Charles Darwin - World Wide Web - Email

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To take the premise of the award seriously is to suppose the stupidity of the awardees to be genetically determined (see Nature versus nurture).

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To qualify, one must behave in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, such as juggling hand grenades (Croatia, 2001), jumping out of a plane to film skydivers while not wearing a parachute oneself (North Carolina, 1987), using a lighter to illuminate a fuel tank to make sure it contains nothing flammable (São Paulo, 2002), or heating a lava lamp on top of a stove. While most Darwin winners receive the award posthumously, self-sterilization is sufficient for the award.

Related Topics:
Croatia - 2001 - North Carolina - 1987 - São Paulo - 2002 - Lava lamp

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Honorable Mentions go to those who, by no deficiency of stupidity, failed to remove themselves from the gene pool. Their foolish and dangerous acts are worth mentioning, if only to keep others from standing near them at their next attempt. Some of these include a man chasing a beer can and getting hit by a truck (Texas, 2002), people petting sharks during their feeding frenzy on a dead whale (Australia, 2001), and two people getting burned while trying to set fire to an arcade machine (unknown area, 2002).

Related Topics:
Texas - 2002 - Australia - 2001

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Personal Accounts go to stories that fit most of the requirements for a Darwin Award or Honorable Mention, but cannot be independently verified for several reasons. This can be because the submitted incident was witnessed by (or happened to) the submitter and was not witnessed by members of the general public. It also applies to submissions by medical professionals about the people that they have crossed paths with in the line of duty; due to the legal and occupational protections in place to ensure the privacy of patients, the details that are neccesary for such a submission to be classified as an Honorable Mention or Darwin Award cannot be provided. http://www.darwinawards.com/slush/200503/pending20050313-031332.html

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Some of the stories, such as that of the JATO Rocket Car, have been shown to be ficticious http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/darwin04.asp.

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While lists of Darwin Awards have been circulating via email for some time, the awards were popularized by webmistress and author Wendy Northcutt, a.k.a. Darwin. Her site, darwinawards.com, is by far the best known of the Darwin Award sites.

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