Darwin Award

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The Darwin price is a sarcastic negative price . It has been used since 1994 to report on people who accidentally kill themselves, have fatal accidents or render themselves sterile and who, according to the organizers of the award, show a particular degree of stupidity. The name refers to Charles Darwin , the discoverer of natural selection . The idea behind this is that an unfit for life individual of his type will do a favor if it prevents the further spread of his own genetic material . People who have narrowly escaped death are awarded an “honorable mention”.

The deaths are featured on a website. All cases are checked for correctness or plausibility . Modern sagas were only included in the first book edition of the Darwin Awards .

criteria

The candidate or award winner must meet the following criteria:

  1. Inability to reproduce: the candidate must be eliminated from the gene pool, i.e. die or at least become sterile.
  2. Originality: There has to be an exceptionally stupid misjudgment, more than the "usual stupidity".
  3. Own negligence: The candidate must have caused his / her withdrawal from the gene pool himself. In addition, the death of a bystander leads to the rejection of the story.
  4. Maturity: The candidate must be a judgmental person. Children whose judgment is not fully developed or people with mental disorders are excluded.
  5. Correctness: The event must be confirmed or at least plausible.

It is controversial whether the Darwin Prize should also be awarded to a person who has living children - he has already passed on his “idiocy genes”. In the German book edition from 2003 it was made clear: "If the candidate's descendants already exist, this represents a potential danger for the gene pool, but the candidate will not be disqualified."

history

The Darwin Prize is an idea by biology students at Stanford University in California . They collected bizarre cases and anecdotes and presented them on a university website. After the site became very popular it was outsourced. Today new cases are posted daily and discussed and assessed by a worldwide fan base. There is also a newsletter .

The project is largely supported by the molecular biologist Wendy Northcutt , who is also the author of the Darwin Awards books. She finally gave up her regular job and is still working on the project today.

In Germany, the Darwin Prize became better known when the news magazine Der Spiegel dedicated an article to it on January 5, 1998. The price was previously reported in the magazine Spiegel Special 9/1997.

Examples

  • A lawyer threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of a high-rise building to demonstrate the stability of the window panes. However, the window frame gave way, the lawyer fell out of the building and was instantly dead on impact.
  • A driver who wanted to relieve himself during a traffic jam jumped over a guardrail. He failed to see that there was a ravine just beyond.
  • When it rained heavily, a young woman drove into a street that was closed by the police and fell into a small river with her moped. Shortly after being rescued by a police officer, she jumped into the river again and drowned. It remained unclear whether she wanted to flee or save her moped.
  • Two intruders tried to blow up an ATM using so much explosives that the entire building collapsed above them.
  • A 25-year-old cyclist was crossing the tarmac at a Brazilian airport. He didn't notice the plane landing because he was listening to music on his Walkman . When the plane hit him, he was in the middle of the tarmac. Damage to the propeller and wing occurred on the aircraft.
  • John Allen Chau , winner in 2018, died in the attempt on North Sentinel Iceland living Sentinelese despite contact ban on the Indian government to proselytize Christianity . Chau tried several times to enter the island, contrary to the current prohibitions, and after ignoring warning shots from the locals, he was shot with arrows on his third attempt.

Audio book

In 2002 an audio book was published in which Hella von Sinnen and Dirk Bach read the most bizarre deaths to each other in a cheerful way.

The comedy The Darwin Awards is based in part on the real-life award-winning incidents.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Darwin Awards
  2. ↑ Wendy Northcutt, Latest Darwin Awards, p. 21
  3. ↑ Prices: Naked in the lion enclosure in Der Spiegel 2/1998 of January 5, 1998.
  4. ↑ Death, where is your sting? The most unbelievable accidents in the world in Spiegel Special 9/1997 from September 1st, 1997
  5. ↑ Death has its price ( Memento of March 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (on: web.de , accessed on December 18, 2009)
  6. ^ Darwin Award 2009: Dying to Go
  7. ^ Darwin Award 2009: Double Dip
  8. ^ Darwin Award 2009: Crashing Debt
  9. ^ Darwin Award 1997: No Bike Lane at the Airport
  10. ↑ The Missionary Position - 2018 Darwin Award Winner . Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  11. ↑ Le Monde , AFP: America tué par la tribu des Sentinelles: l'Inde appelée à laisser le corps sur l'île. In: LeMonde.fr. November 28, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 (French).
  12. ↑ Wendy Northcutt: The Darwin Awards. 2 CDs: For the bizarre ways to get to death. Hoffmann and Campe, 2002, ISBN 978-3455302677 .