The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction (38 page)

These questions are vexing. And the answers . . . we just don’t know. The rule of thumb is, if you no longer have the physical wherewithal to breed with a mate on a desert island,
you
are out of the gene pool.

Yes! Although technological advances have extended the average lifespan, the mechanism of evolution still applies: (1) a species must show variation; (2) that variation must be inheritable; (3) not all members of the population survive to reproduce; but (4) the inherited characteristics of some members make them more likely to do so. Not only are humans still evolving, we are doing it faster than ever before. There is solid evidence that human evolution has accelerated dramatically in the past ten thousand years.
¹⁵

“Stupidity is the only universal capital crime . . . and execution is carried out automatically.”

—Robert Heinlein
Time Enough for Love

 

“Survival of the fittest ” alters a species gradually—over thousands of generations—or quickly when it eliminates the dodo who does not avoid the club. It eliminates with equal ease the bird that flies into a window and the driver who weaves around the freeway yakking on a phone.
Without a doubt, humans
are “really” evolving.
We won’t recognize ourselves in a hundred thousand years.

But whether the Darwin Awards represent human evolution is less clear. Is there a set of genes that causes a man to kite board during a hurricane (p. 223) or a woman to chase a feather (p. 105) off a cliff? Do chromosomes play a role in the decision to jump into a dust devil? (p. 236) These actions do not appear to have a direct genetic link.

Here at Darwin Central, all we know is that a person who does not survive through his own acts is
manifestly
less fit than the rest of us. Said genes are
ipso facto
gone from the future, and we can only hope there
is
a genetic link because that means the next generation will see fewer people shooting stashes of dynamite, (p. 146) staging risky accidents for insurance (p. 123), or anchoring boats with ordnance (p. 151).

Yes, there is indeed a poetic beauty here. The well-planned Darwin Award can illustrate the creativity and genius that distinguishes us from less adaptable species. The same innovative spirit that causes the downfall of a Darwin Award winner is also responsible for the social and scientific advances that make the human race great. Cheese, flight, electricity, and small businesses are some of the benefits to having risk takers living (and dying) among us.

“Is a feminist conspiracy at work in the selection of the candidates? ”

—Concerned Reader

 

Nearly all of the submissions for this ignominious Award are on behalf of male perps. Ten percent or fewer are female, and of those 10 percent, more are likely to be At-Risk Survivors. Pure observation leads us to conclude that males are risk takers and driven to daring feats. It’s a gender difference. Get over it.

Laughter helps us cope with tragedy.

Wendy says, “I see a little of myself 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 hope my family and friends will laugh through their tears and say,
That’s just like Wendy. Oh, she was such an idiot!

Why are the Darwin Awards funny? Readers wax eloquent on the subject:

Waiting for science experiments to run their courses is, at times, tedious. In the gaps, Wendy learned how to make a website from a Stanford sysadmin, back when the WWW was first invented. The Internet was young then and changing quickly. The excitement of learning how to shape this new media was the driving force behind her first website, which originally included a section called “Pet Porn” that showed innocent gag pictures of family pets: a kitten sleeping with a sexy negligee, the dog accidentally French-kissing Papa. Soon the annoyed sysadmin complained that Wendy’s Pet Porn pages were the top-visited destination on his Stanford server. Ewww! Creeped out, she pulled down the pet pictures. The Darwin Awards stories were the second-most popular, and Wendy jibes, “My future could have gone either way.”

In your hands you hold the sixth book.

In April 2010, there were 842
¹⁶
stories on the website. Seven hundred have been published in six books in twenty-three languages. The Darwin Awards will live until the supply ends! Or until Wendy wins a Darwin Award while executing her latest mad plan innovative idea.

Darwin Awards: The Movie
stars Joseph Fiennes and Winona Ryder, with guest appearances by
MythBusters
hosts Jamie and Adam, and the rock band Metallica. This movie is seriously silly fun. It was written and directed by Finn Taylor and filmed in the San Francisco Bay Area using plenty of stellar local talent. Check it out on DVD!

Darwin Awards: The Musical
is a sensational stage play composed by Stephen Witkin, Joey Miller, and Mitch Magonet and is coming to a theatrical stage near you. When Stephen told me he wanted to write a musical, I reached for the Q-tips. A musical?! But his ideas and script are awesome.
Beach Blanket Babylon
meets
Avenue Q
. Great songs have been composed, and the show continues to be developed while seeking Off-Broadway producers.

NO! And you shouldn’t either.

Cell phones take too much attention away from the input you
ought
to attend to. Humans are not equipped to use these devices safely even while walking down the street, or piloting a shopping cart. A person on a cell phone does not notice the needs of others. In the supermarket you will not realize that you are causing aisle congestion. In a car you will drive slower and more erratically. It is very risky to drive “under the influence” of a phone.

We here at Darwin Central have made personal life changes due to reading thousands of Darwin-dumb submissions. The hardest change was to stay off our cell phones while driving. Try putting that deadly device in the backseat. Whatever it takes, get off the phone!

Remember: To win a Darwin Award, an adult must eliminate himself from the gene pool in an astonishingly stupid way that is verifiably true.