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"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

June 2020

Annual Darwin Awards

The Darwin Awards are an annual joke promoted by those of us who believe that Darwin?s science is valid. Those who change in ways that help their survival thrive. Those who prefer tradition die off. Stupidity kills.

The Darwin Awards are jokingly granted to those fellow human beings whose stupid choices and actions render them unfit for the gene pool. A person who jumps off a roof, flapping his arms, truly believing he can fly like a bird, should not live to reproduce.

Religious Beliefs. My first Darwin Award was provided by Raymond Ebrahim, Fellow of the Middle East Forum: "Muslim advocacy for drinking camel urine is back in the news, this time in connection with the coronavirus, which is especially ironic if not deadly, as will be explained. An ?Islamic medicine specialist? and director of a religious-scientific institution in Iran recently called on his countrymen to drink camel urine as the ?best cure? for coronavirus and other ailments.
Mehdi Sabili, who is affiliated with the Iranian regime, uploaded a video on his Instagram account extolling the virtues of dromedary urine on April 19. The video, which has since gone viral, also depicted him drinking a glass of freshly procured camel urine ? which he enthused was best drunk ?fresh and warm? ? and calling on fellow Iranians to do the same three times a day for three days (i.e., nine full glasses)."

The rationale is that the Prophet Mohammad not only advocated camel urine as a cure, but his devout followers drank Mohammad?s own urine for extra protection. Today?s followers say that if the Prophet believed this, science should be ignored. (Lots of luck with this. Hope Iran has enough ventilators.)

Another brilliant offering from "Sharia medicine" is to insert lavender-oil cotton ball into the anus, or in another case, to smell roses. The son of a prominent Ayatollah confessed that his father died because he believed these Islamic medicine specialists.

Religion vs Science. A Darwin Award to the Hassidic residents of Brooklyn who massed to attend a Rabbi?s funeral, a rabbi who died of the Coronavirus. Despite the pandemic?s toll on these people, who believe religion more than science, they continue to mass for worship and flood the hospitals with the consequences. Their death rate confirms Darwin?s assessment of cleansing the gene pool.
Believing Trump, not science. Two Georgia men were hospitalized after drinking cleansers after President Trump suggested that Clorox might be effective in cleaning out their lungs. Another couple died recently after a similar experiment. Calls to the poison centers of the CDC have increased since Trump made his inane musing. The absence of such users from the scene will increase the human IQ by many points.

Vaccine Deniers. As world governments frantically work toward developing a vaccine that can bring an end to the pandemic, Darwin?s stupidest deniers bleat: "I don?t want the government forcing it on my community or my family." By all means, deniers, let the virus remove you and yours from the gene pool.


Vaccine deniers are bringing back deadly measles with their insurgency against inoculation. Who can resist a great conspiracy theory?

Polio, the dread crippler of children, has had a resurgence after nearly being wiped out. When the UN?s World Health Organization tried to inoculate the last unprotected children in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and sub-Sahara Africa, the gallant medics bringing this help were attacked or killed. Muslim clerics tell ignorant mothers that the vaccine is a western plot to make their children sterile. The Darwin Award for these idiots is dead or crippled children. Maybe they should try camel urine?

Holy Magic. My top award goes to the Greek Orthodox Church in Athens that administers Communion by mixing bread and wine in a chalice, dips in a spoon, puts it in the congregant?s mouth, then using the same spoon, does the same for each Communicant. When condemned by health officials, the Holy Synod excommunicated the officials, saying that criticism was blasphemous. The bread and wine become magically the flesh and blood of Jesus, not just contaminated bread and wine. Write your wills, dear congregation. Darwin Award for you.

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Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and author of "How Do You Know That? Contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.netglobalthink.net.









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