The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour
BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7094 (Published 11 December 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g7094All rapid responses
Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed. Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles. The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being wilfully misrepresented as published articles or when it is brought to our attention that a response spreads misinformation.
From March 2022, the word limit for rapid responses will be 600 words not including references and author details. We will no longer post responses that exceed this limit.
The word limit for letters selected from posted responses remains 300 words.
This difference could be biological. A study at Texas A&M University tracked radio-collared fox squirrels on campus found that one quarter of the males did not survive the first year -- they were all run over by cars. Fewer females died, with most killed by predators (reported in the New York Times, May 2003)
Competing interests: No competing interests
A very funny and entertaining study.
Men, it is certain, must convince a woman, or more than one perhaps, that the risk of childbirth is worthwhile. To do so they must show off. The best show offs have the best chance of reproductive success. Of course like any trait, showing off can be dangerous if expressed to excess. Let us reserve some measure of compassion for those who are caught out in this dangerous and excessive expression of xy disease.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Sir,
I read with interest the above article, however the authors omitted the crucial qualifying criterion for winning a Darwin Award, namely that the recipient must be eliminated from the gene pool prior to successful reproduction.
Removing an idiot from the the gene pool is useless to us as a species if that idiot has already been "piddling in the shallow end" and producing equally moronic offspring, no matter how amusing the mode of death.
Competing interests: No competing interests
It may very well be true, and part of the reason women in high-income countries live nearly 10% longer than men. However, of course nominations for Darwin Awards are a highly suspect -- potentially biased -- sample. Since men are programmed to "protect the weaker sex" they will be reluctant to nominate and thus revel in the deaths of a woman. Since women often suffer from being the underprivileged gender, some may take a perverse pleasure in the idiotic deaths of men. Men ARE programmed to protect women. Positive proof of that is the lifespan discrepancy noted above.
If men lived 10% longer than women this inequity would be declared a national crisis in the United States, with proposals for a Manhattan Project scale health research program to correct the problem. Note that NIH today has a Office for Research on Women's Health (ORWH), but no ORMH. As the ship is sinking, it's "women and children first." Men are considered expendable, and they are trained to understand this from an early age. In Hollywood movies, 90% of the time it's the man who risks his life to save the woman in danger (which is a male AND female fantasy that reinforces our gender indoctrination). Men are more likely to show up in hospital emergency rooms with sports injuries because they're raised to understand that women (potential mates) like athletic guys. Certain aspects of men's risky behaviors may be triggered by lessons learned in childhood that they will win favor among both men and women for successfully doing unusual and risky things. That our society indoctrinates men to take risks, which lead to shorter lifespans, is actually a sad thing. Not something to laugh at or revel in.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Definitely an interesting article, however I think this the authors might have been subjected to an element of unverifiable bias in the reporting of events. The reference to “the terrorist who posted a letter bomb with insufficient postage stamps and who, on its return, unthinkingly opened his own letter” is a case in point. Although I know very few terrorists, it does appear rather stupid to take the time to write a return address (and maybe even your name) on a letter bomb.
In this case, therefore, I would like to suggest an alternative conclusion. The sender of the letter bomb was of above average intelligence; however had just been diagnosed with early onset dementia. Having researched the disease, he wanted an exit strategy that would not appear to be suicide and could not involve any of his family members. Hence he deliberately constructed the letter bomb, ensuring it would not explode in the mail, leaving his name and address on the envelope, sending it to a dead address and underpaid the cost of postage. On its return, he opened the letter knowing the result, in which case rather than just being an idiot, we might have lost the DNA of quite a creative individual for which the gene pool has been diminished
Competing interests: No competing interests
I read with interest the article by Lendrem et al published in BMJ 2014; 349:g7094. The authors observed a statistical significant difference in the gender distribution of the recipients of the Darwin awards. The authors bluntly conclude that this finding “..supports the hypothesis that men are idiots and that idiots do stupid things”.
However, I feel that grave injustice is being done to the male gender, for unknown reasons and motives. While there is overwhelming empirical evidence that “idiots do stupid things”, it is unclear whether the high incidence of male gender among Darwin award recipients can safely lead to the conclusion that “men are idiots”. Such extrapolations are unscientific. A similar analogy showing how precarious the author’s finding and their study design is can be obtained when analysing gender differences in the recipients of Nobel prizes. Out of a total 864 persons receiving a Nobel prize, only 47 were women (p<0.0001 for a H0 of 0.5 as in the author’s statistical analyses). Can this support any theory that men are smarter than women? CERTAINLY NOT!
Several methodological issues question the validity of the author’s claims. It is unknown how many candidates for the Darwin awards were male or female and how this candidate selection process takes place. It may very well be that although the award recipients are mostly male, the distribution of candidates may be different. Data on the candidates of the Darwin awards might shed some more light on the validity or not of the MIT theory. But furthermore it is unknown if candidacy for a Darwin awards, is in anyway a random or even representative sample of the population in question (the idiots).
I feel that the data presented by the authors do not support their claims and an apology to the male gender is necessary. More data are required to verify the validity of the MIT theory. As the authors state, carefully designed experimental studies (at best without alcohol as a further confounding factor) including but not limited to semi-naturalistic Christmas party settings are required for a definite, scientific, evidence based answer.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour
With great pleasure and awe I read the paper by Lendrem et al. (1) Though rife with issues in methodology and data, it is not really hard to see the enormous scientific value of the knowledge gained by this study. (the whining in the responses here not withstanding, which can easily be set aside as envy over the almost certain Nobel prize this research is to be awarded with) We must now go onward and venture to understand the causal pathways in the MIT with more refinement. In this, we should not shut our eyes to the nurture part of this subject. Recent research has shed light on the influence of female companionship on idiotic male behavior. In their landmark study Ronay & von Hippel found that male skaters had elevated levels of testosterone and crash landed more when an attractive woman was present. (2) Testosterone is widely know as the purveyor of all things bad-ass. (only rivaled by copious amounts of beer, which is a very manly substance too) (3). We can thus conclude with great certainty that it is - again - the fault of the woman part of our world we are doomed, by swaying us to our premature graves with the apples of their beauty.
1. BMJ 2014;349:g7094
2. Ronay, R., & Hippel, W. (2010). The presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone and physical risk taking in young men. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1 (1), 57-64.
3. Maddox (2006) The alphabet of manliness.
Competing interests: As a nurse, the vast majority of my colleagues are female. This may be an idiotic response, for they might read it and kill me in a furious rage over its content. Having no offspring, I'm a potential Darwin award recipient and ask kindly to be buried with it, in case this response proves fatal.