Darwin Awards

Quote: Pacomartin

This guy rode 2800 miles

Quote: Nareed

And perhaps won a Darwin Award in the process?

Quote: Wizard

Why would that be? You can see by his sign using the past tense that he completed the challenge and he looks alive to me.

Quote: Nareed

Sorry for the delay.

You'd know better than I what happens to the male anatomy after spending hours a day in that kind of seat, at that kind of increased body temperature, for several days on end. Natural selection is about reproduction, not survival (Darwin never said "survival of the fittest.")

What does this thread mean. I don't get it.

I dont know.

Darwin awards are listed each year as people who died under such stupid circumstances that it is claimed they did evolution a favor by killing themselves.

Don't think it has much to do with Finches whether fit or unfit, just people who died by such stupid misadventures like fishing with an aluminum pole in a lightning storm or something or looking down the barrel of the gun while trying to work the trigger.

This is a split-off from the unicycle thread.

We could talk about why Darwin is so widely misunderstood.

A lot of the most unfortunate events of the XX Century, in particular WWII, was partly a result of the influence of Darwin's misunderstood and misrepresented ideas on the culture at large.

Rather than representing a purposeful, inexorable progress towards improvement, natural selection can best be summed up in two phrases by Bill Bryson: "Life wants to be. It just doesn't want to be very much."

Quote: Nareed

We could talk about why Darwin is so widely misunderstood.

Darwin Awards are part of pop culture and originated in the mid 1980's with use-net groups. They don't actually reflect Darwin's theories.

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

Removal can be by death or sterilization, and the implication is that this removal is by stupid decision making on the part of the person who is removed , and not by tragic mistakes or accidents.

Quote: Pacomartin

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

That's the exact misunderstanding of Darwin which has caused so much grief to so many people.

Natural selection is about adapting well enough to keep going and reproducing indefinitely. Not about improving the genomes of a population. The idea of improving the gene pool is called eugenics. That's what the award should be named after.

It's like, you don't even need to read the article. There's not going to be a good reason given.

Man, 25, dies after setting off firework on his head.

I'll see your firework and raise you an alligator.

"F*** that alligator": Man killed seconds after mocking gator warning

Language in link NSFW, obviously.

He is indeed special. First alligator death in Texas in 2 centuries.