They recognize individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or becoming sterilized by their own actions.

Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival.

[5][6][7][8] 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.

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.

One example of this is Larry Walters, who attached helium-filled weather balloons to a lawn chair and floated far above Long Beach, California, in July 1982.

Another notable honorable mention was given to the two men who attempted to burgle the home of footballer Duncan Ferguson (who had an infamous reputation for physical aggression on and off the pitch, including four convictions for assault and who had served six months in Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison) in 2001, with one burglar requiring three days' hospitalisation after being confronted by the player.

[15] A 2014 study published in the British Medical Journal found that between 1995 and 2014, males represented 88.7% of Darwin Award winners (see figure).

To avoid debates about the possibility of in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, or cloning, the original Darwin Awards book applied the following "deserted island" test to potential winners: If the person were unable to reproduce when stranded on a deserted island with a fertile member of the opposite sex, he or she would be considered sterile.

[20] In 2011, however, the awards targeted a 16-year-old boy in Leeds who died stealing copper wiring (he was underage at the time of his death; the standard minimum driving age in Great Britain being 17[relevant?]).

[21] Under this rule, and for reasons of good taste, individuals whose misfortune was caused by mental impairment or disability are not eligible for a Darwin Award, primarily to avoid mocking or making light of the disabled, and to ensure that the awards do not celebrate or trivialize tragedies involving vulnerable individuals.