Sent to the lions

lions
So this guy sneaks into the lion's den at the Kiev Zoo. Shouts, "God will save me, if he exists," lowers himself by rope into the pen, takes off his shoes, and...

According to Reuters::

...one of the lions seized him by the throat. The man died at the scene.

Surely a candidate for the Darwin Awards, no?

More like this

From Reuters: A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday. "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and…
Let's test the proposition. "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said. The answer? No.
I quite enjoyed this Shouts and Murmur piece (reprinted below in full). It's called My Nature Documentary (by Jack Handey) - - - "Show monkey in a tree. Narrator says, "The monkey, proud and smart, in his native habitat. But one thing he does not have . . ." Show a giraffe. ". . . is a long neck…
I hope everyone has been enjoying my write-ups of Inside Nature's Giants (ING), series 2 (for comments on episode 1 go here, and for thoughts on episode 2 go here). Time to look at ep 3: the big cat one. Given that big cats are more popular (among the general populace) than are either sharks or…

I'm not fond of the Darwin Awards. First of all, they usually target a sort of foolish behavior that has very little to do with natural selection and everything to do with individual circumstances. Second, they tend to perpetuate the idea that Darwinism is equivalent to Social Darwinism, which is noxious.

I've also noticed that the recipients tend to be 1) From the poorer classes 2) Uneducated and 3) Drunk or otherwise impaired. One might argue that this last part is Darwinian selection attempting to weed the taste for alcohol from our phenotype, but it's been mightily ineffective to date, and besides, I can think of all sorts of things in my own history that Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, but weren't.

In actual fact, the Award recipients are very rarely younger than child-bearing age, so the selection pressure is pretty minimal. For the case in the new item, I rather think that the poor fellow was insane; if he'd been jabbering about fluffy bunnies because he was hallucinating, would he have rated a news item, or a Darwin Award nomination?

So, are the Darwin Awards really about Natural Selection, or are they more a case of Making Fun of People who Didn't Go to College?

On the other hand, I hereby apologize for beating up on you for your blogging an item that was no doubt meant in jest.

The lions were sitting in their cage at the zoo and decided to perform an experiment.

"If there is a God, He will bring a human over to our side of the wall for lunch and He will get it here in 30 minutes or less."

"Naah. No way. You're crazy."

(Human jumps over the wall.)

"You see? There -is- a God."

By Mike Stone (not verified) on 04 Jul 2006 #permalink

So, are the Darwin Awards really about Natural Selection, or are they more a case of Making Fun of People who Didn't Go to College?

What, so its our fault that Hey Bubba, watch this and Hold my beer while I try this are among the most popular last lines?