Darwin Day and Awards

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By Akindman,

Darwin Day is an annual, international commemoration of the birthday and ideas of Charles Darwin, a British naturalist born February 12, 1809, and author of the seminal book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

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International Darwin Day Foundation

This Darwin Day will be celebrated by the GLOBAL community as a toast to the common good of all humanity. We will all want to develop events to Celebrate Darwin, Science and Humanity and come together as one human family in appreciation of verifiable knowledge that has been acquired solely through human curiosity and ingenuity. Scientific knowledge has been of great value to all of us. It is our hope that the Celebration of Science and Humanity will be so well established that DURING THE REMAINDER OF THE YEAR we will all want to continue to work to make February the 12th an International day to recognize Verifiable Scientific Knowledge and to appreciate the connection of Humankind to the acquisition of this knowledge.

Awards

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The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor, created by Wendy Northcutt to recognize individuals who contribute to human evolution by self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool through putting themselves (unnecessarily) in life-threatening situations. A book series is paralleled by a website, "www.DarwinAwards.com", whose "Rules" section explains:

In the spirit of Charles Darwin, the Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival.

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Examples of Darwin award winners include:

• Juggling live hand grenades (Croatia, 2001)
• Leaving a lit cigarette in a warehouse full of explosives (Philippines, 1999)
• Three Palestinian terrorists accidentally blown up by their bombs set on Palestinian daylight saving time, one hour ahead of the local time (Israel, 1999)
• Jumping out of a plane to film skydivers without wearing a parachute (U.S., 1987)
• Trying to get enough light to look down the barrel of a loaded muzzle-loaded gun using a cigarette lighter (U.S., 1996)
• 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 loads the next round into the chamber
• Attempting Russian roulette with an unexploded landmine
• Crashing through a window and falling to one's death in trying to demonstrate that the window was unbreakable

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