Darwin Awards
A Darwin Award is a tongue-in-cheek "honor" named after evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin. Awards have been given for people who "do a service to Humanity by removing themselves from the Gene pool", i.e., lose the ability to reproduce either by death or sterilization in a stupid fashion. According to Wendy Northcutt, author of the Darwin Award books: "The Awards honor people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion." The Darwin Award books state that an attempt is made to disallow urban legends from the awards, but some older "winners" have been 'grandfathered' to keep their awards.
Examples Include
Examples of Darwin award winners include:
- Juggling active handgrenades (Croatia, 2001),[6]
- Leaving a lit cigarette in a warehouse full of explosives
- Jumping out of a plane to film skydivers without wearing a parachute (US., 1987),[7]
- Trying to get enough light to look down the barrel of a loaded muzzleloader gun using a cigarette lighter (U.S., 1996),[8]
- Using a lighter to illuminate a fuel tank to make sure it contains nothing flammable (Brazil, 2003),
- Attempting to play Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol that automatically reloads the next round into the chamber,[9]
- or attempting Russian roulette with an unexploded landmine
- Crashing through a window and falling to your death in trying to demonstrate that the window is unbreakable,[10]
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