The Darwin Awards IV: Intelligent Design by Wendy Northcutt and Christopher M. Kelly

Extraordinary human misjudgements inspire dark humour and disbelief

Fair Condition - with scuffed and marked covers, edge rubbing and creases across the lower back corner. Page edges are browned and spotted. Heavy foxing on the opening page, with lighter spotting on text pages; text remains readable and pages are overall in good condition.

The fourth Darwin Awards collection returns to the improbable things people do when confidence outruns common sense. Wendy Northcutt gathers cautionary accounts of reckless experiments, misguided shortcuts and decisions with consequences their participants failed to foresee. Alongside the stories are science essays and a parody research paper that extend the book's irreverent interest in evolution and human behaviour. Short entries make the collection easy to browse, while the contrast between apparently obvious dangers and astonishing responses supplies its dark comic appeal. Intelligent Design continues the series' tradition of treating extreme foolishness as a subject for both laughter and incredulity, offering readers a succession of reminders that ingenuity and sound judgement do not always travel together.