Read The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design Online
Authors: Wendy Northcutt
The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action
The Darwin Awards 2: Unnatural Selection
The Darwin Awards 3: Survival of the Fittest
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
with Christopher M. Kelly
DUTTON
The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design
contains cautionary tales of misadventure. It is intended to be viewed as a safety manual, not a how-to guide. The stories illustrate evolution working through natural selection: Those whose actions have lethal personal consequences are weeded out of the gene pool. Your decisions can kill you, so pay attention and stay alive.
DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First electronic edition, October 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Wendy Northcutt
All rights reserved
Illustrations by Peter McDonnell
DARWIN AWARDS is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGINGPUBLICATION DATA
Northcutt, Wendy.
The Darwin awards 4 : intelligent design / Wendy Northcutt with Christopher M. Kelly.
p. cm.
ISBN: 0-7865-8996-5
1. Stupidity—Anecdotes. 2. Stupidity—Humor. I. Kelly, Christopher M. II. Title. III. Title: Darwin awards four. IV. Title: Intelligent design.
BF431.N675 2006
081—dc22
2006023936
Set in Century Old Style and Weiss
Designed by Leonard Telesca
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Websites or their content.
This one’s for you, babe.
*
If all else fails, Immortality
can always be assured
by spectacular error.—John Kenneth Galbraith
Introduction
True intelligent design is the unerring scythe of natural selection.
CHAPTER 1
Vehicles
Motorcycles, trucks, trains, cars, snowmobiles, mopeds, a wheelchair, and one mountain bike—wheels spark a powerful urge to test mechanical limits. The stories in this chapter show that humans still have a long way to go, in evolving to cope with the ubiquitous dangers of our transportation system.