Posthumous Prizes for Foolhardiness

Darwin Awards Given for Extreme Stupidity

Oct 19, 2009 Rupert Taylor

Some people seem compelled to undertake terrifyingly inane exploits that lead to them paying the ultimate price.

Wendy Northcutt is a scientist with a highly developed, if somewhat ghoulish, sense of humour. She is the organizer of the Darwin Awards, which are handed out to “salute the improvement of the human genome by honouring those who accidentally remove themselves from it.”

Awards Named for Charles Darwin

With tongue firmly in cheek, the idea behind the awards is that the evolutionary progress of the human race is enhanced when monumentally stupid people are no longer able to reproduce. The failure to pass on their genes is usually the result of an accidental death that anybody with a modicum of intelligence could have seen coming.

Not everyone has died in pursuit of a Darwin Award; there have been cases of those who have lost certain delicate parts, without which reproduction is impossible.

Creativity an Essential Ingredient for a Prizewinner

Everybody has seen kamikaze drivers hurtling down the highway heading for their inevitable rendezvous with death, but a Darwin Award winner has to be a bit more creative than behaving like a yahoo on the road.

James Burns went that one step further in March 1995. Burns of Alamo, Michigan was troubled by mysterious noises coming from beneath his farm truck. He got a friend to drive the vehicle down the highway while he clung to the chassis trying to spot the offending clunking. Loose clothing has been the undoing of many a person and so it was with Burns. His friend found him “wrapped in the drive shaft.”

Electricity a Favourite among Award Recipients

Anything to do with power lines is a job for the professionals.

According to darwinawards.com Mieczyskaw Mil didn’t read the memo on that one. On June 27, 2009 a severe storm ripped through Sullivan County, Pennsylvania and took down a lot of power lines. Mil got fed up waiting for the power company to come and fix his electricity supply. He was repeatedly warned by police and firefighters to stay clear of the downed lines, but he ignored them.

“Mil emerged from his home shortly after midnight with an industrial circular saw in his hand and plastic bags on his feet. He stood in a puddle of water and attempted to saw through a 4,800-volt feeder line that was dangling off (a) pole.

Mil was 64 years old.

Elaborate Stunt Gone Wrong

Sometimes getting recognition for extreme idiocy requires meticulous but misguided planning. Okay, set out a buoyant lawn chair, dress up in a survival suit, get the satellite phone and the GPS, attach a load of helium balloons, sit in the chair, and cut the tether. What could possibly go wrong? “Up, up, and Away, with my Beautiful Balloons.”

Brazilian Catholic priest Adelir Antonio didn’t factor in the possibility of wind change, nor did he take the precaution of learning how to use his GPS. On April 20, 2008 he drifted out over the Atlantic Ocean as he struggled to contact rescuers while the batteries on his satellite phone died. But help could not be sent because Father Antonio didn’t know how to activate his GPS. Eventually, bits of balloon appeared on Brazilian beaches and later what was left of the good priest’s body.

Wendy Northcutt points out that Father Antonio qualifies for a double Darwin; as a Catholic priest he took a vow of celibacy and, as there’s no reason to believe he broke that undertaking, he had already removed his genes from the pool before his untimely demise.

The copyright of the article Posthumous Prizes for Foolhardiness in Scientific Inquiry is owned by Rupert Taylor. Permission to republish Posthumous Prizes for Foolhardiness in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Award Recognizes Demise of the Unfit.