Give Evolution a Chance

We live in a stupid world, a world now overpopulated with unintelligent and ignorant people. We place these stupid people in positions of power and we idolise them.

If you are not convinced then consider global politics and the leaders of the free world – halfwits like Reagan, George W Bush and Trump. In the UK, celebrity status is bestowed upon morons from reality TV – idiots like Joey Essex who can't tell the time or blow his nose. We worship fatuous footballers like Wayne Rooney, say no more. And our children aspire to be pop stars like the puerile Jedwood and Justin Bieber.

For humanity to survive we need to take back control of stupidity. I'm not here to condone eugenics - that's a dark sinister topic for a blog. But we must allow evolution to continue its good work – to weed out the cretins so that our species can continue to evolve.

After much deliberation, I conclude that our main problem is the nanny state. Thanks to health & safety fascists we have become over-protective of the ridiculously stupid. "This coffee cup contains hot liquid", "These peanuts may contain nuts", "do not iron clothes on body", "do not use this blow torch for drying hair", the list goes on.

That is why I am a fan of the Darwin Awards – we should encourage them in place of overtly obvious labels and signage. For those who are not aware of the Darwin Awards, they are awards given to people whose delusional actions remove them from the gene pool.

For example, Polish farmer, Krystof Azninski, attempted to prove he was Europe’s most macho man by cutting off his own head. Mr Azninski and his friends, after drinking decided to strip naked and engage in a contest of masculinity. They started by hitting each other over the head with frozen turnips, but when one man cut off his own foot with a chainsaw, Azninski felt compelled to respond and top it by taking off his own head. One of the men was quoted as saying: "It's funny, because when he was young he put on his sister's underwear. But he died like a man".

Virginian police found the body of one Eric Barcia who had died bungee jumping off a 70 ft bridge. Frugal Eric had decided to manufacture his own bungee cord. He diligently strapped himself to the cord and tied the other end to the bridge. Eric jumped confident in the knowledge that he’d carefully measured out the bungee’s total length – 70 feet.  But bungee cords stretch and Eric’s spectacular splat on the river bed removed him from the evolutionary stream.

Gary Allen Banning accidentally drank from a pickle jar containing petrol. He was at a friend’s apartment when he mistook the jar for alcohol. When he realised it was petrol he quickly spat it out. To help recover he lit up a cigarette and promptly burst into flames winning him a place in the Darwin Awards.

A lot of the submissions involve guns – people and guns are a volatile combination. An unnamed Wisconsin man (i.e. a politician) had a longstanding erotic game with his wife where she would place the barrel of an unloaded shotgun against his scrotum and then pull the trigger. However, last time the imminent arrival of friends seems to have made them rush their foreplay – the gun was loaded. The man survived but earned a rare "Living Darwin Award" for his self-exclusion from the human gene pool.

My favourite Darwin Award winner is Adelir Antonio de Carli a Catholic priest in Brazil raising money for charity. He took to the sky in a chair attached to 1,000 helium balloons and reached 6,000m. The intention was that he would be tracked via his GPS but unfortunately he had not learned how to use it properly. Two months after lift-off part of the priest’s body was found on oil rig 100km out to sea. His escapade was declared a “double Darwin”, since the celibacy of Catholic priests already excludes them from the gene pool.

We have a moral obligation to protect the young, the elderly, the infirm and the under-privileged but not the overtly stupid. But the stupid are growing in numbers. We need to cease being a nanny state and allow evolution to take its toll. Please support the Darwin Awards and encourage participation.