![]() You should remove this." Northcutt, though, said, "I can't. It has shocked our community to the core. One such person wrote, "This is horrible. Not all of the feedback from the stories Northcutt published was positive, and she occasionally received email from people who knew the deceased. The first book turned out to be a success, and was listed on The New York Times best-seller list for 6 months. Even though it might have cost me a lot of money, I kept saying no." She eventually found a publisher who agreed to print a book containing only 10% of the material gathered for the website. Northcutt refused to do so, saying, "It was a community! I could not do that. She encountered some difficulty in publishing the first book, since most publishers would only offer her a deal if she agreed to remove the stories from the internet. By 2002, the website received 7 million page hits per month. She eventually left the bench in 1998 and devoted herself full-time to her website and books in September 1999. In her spare time, she organised chain letters from family members into the original Darwin Awards website hosted in her personal account space at Stanford. She went on to study neurobiology at Stanford University, doing research on cancer and telomerase. The website and collection of books were started in 1993 by Wendy Northcutt, who at the time was a graduate in molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley. Many of the viral emails circulating the Internet, however, are hoaxes and urban legends. Wendy Northcutt says the official Darwin Awards website run by Northcutt does its best to confirm all stories submitted, listing them as, "confirmed true by Darwin". This story was later determined to be an urban legend by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. Another widely distributed early story mentioning the Darwin Awards is the JATO Rocket Car, which describes a man who strapped a jet-assisted take-off unit to his Chevrolet Impala in the Arizona desert and who died on the side of a cliff as his car achieved speeds of 250 to 300 miles per hour (400 to 480 km/h). Style counts, not everyone who dies from their own stupidity can win." This early post cites an example of a person who tried to break into a vending machine and was crushed to death when he pulled it over himself. A post on Augdescribes the awards as being "given posthumously to people who have made the supreme sacrifice to keep their genes out of our pool. The origin of the Darwin Awards can be traced back to posts on Usenet group discussions as early as 1985. Wendy Northcutt, author of the Darwin Awards website and books The logical problem presented by award winners who may have already reproduced is not addressed in the selection process owing to the difficulty of ascertaining whether or not a person has children the Darwin Award rules state that the presence of offspring does not disqualify a nominee. ![]() Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival." Īccidental self-sterilization also qualifies, but the site notes: "Of necessity, the award is usually bestowed posthumously." The candidate is disqualified, though, if "innocent bystanders" are killed in the process, as they might have contributed positively to the gene pool. The criterion for the awards states: "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. ![]() The project became more formalized with the creation of a website in 1993, followed by a series of books starting in 2000 by Wendy Northcutt. They recognize individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or becoming sterilized via their own actions. The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor that originated in Usenet newsgroup discussions around 1985. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |