darwin-awards-e1282066646670They have a much higher idiot factor than women do, especially when young. This fundamental difference between the sexes will never be eradicated no matter how hard we try. (Although try we must.)

Margaret Wente

The Globe and Mail

The idiot hypothesis is scarcely original to me. It has occurred to most serious scholars of human behaviour.One such study was published last year in the BMJ (the British Medical Journal). The authors analyzed a variety of gender differences in risk-seeking behaviour, emergency department admissions and mortality. They found that men not only take far more risks than women, but far more senseless risks – “where the apparent payoff is negligible or non-existent, and the outcome is often extremely negative and often final.”

Needless to say, the vast majority of Darwin Award nominees (88.7 per cent) are men. Among the recent winners was a terrorist who mailed a letter bomb with insufficient postage and, when it was returned to him, carelessly opened it himself. Another winner was a wheelchair-bound man who missed an elevator, rammed the elevator door in frustration and finally smashed it open – only to plunge to his death.