It’s uncertain which of the three schools of thinking, creationist, intelligent design or natural selection, if any at all, would claim John Darwin, the undead canoeist, as the final proof of their theory, maybe no one at all, as he doesn’t seem to do much credit to any of them.

 

It is a while since we last heard of Mr. and Mrs Darwin but on Thursday, 13th March 2008, a hearing was held at Leeds Crown Court at which they both entered pleas to the various charges brought against them. Mr Darwin pleaded guilty to seven charges of obtaining money [possibly as much as £250,000] by deception and one of obtaining a false passport and not guilty to nine other charges. Mrs Darwin pleaded not guilty to all of the charges brought against her. That’s the dry bit of the tale over with, and summarised here in this article on The Times website.

 

There has been much speculation about the whole story but in particular around the possible motivation. As might be expected, the investigative journals of the world have been digging deep to see what insightful nuggets of muck can be found. One novel theory as to why he gave himself up to the police is that by so doing he would force his wife into giving herself up, but this has is its variations – and drawbacks. The first story, posited by the Glasgow Daily Record, is that he believed his wife was being unfaithful to him but The Sydney Morning Herald goes further than this saying that Darwin believed his wife was about to leave him for another man and leave him penniless, further details here. While this may be plausible, doesn’t it seem a little OTT to put yourself at the mercy of the fuzz, especially after committing a string of frauds, just to stop your spouse having an affair? Would this fit in with Darwin’s previous patterns of behaviour? If other stories are to be believed he regularly indulged in affairs himself so would he be bothered if his wife did the same. Maybe, but maybe not. Does this fit in with the initial story heard last December when he entered a London police station? To all intents and purposes he seriously expected to get away with his amnesia story, although a moments serious thinking might have told him otherwise.

 

The News of The World has another story to tell, not of any planned scheme but of a penpal affair between Darwin and a female prisoner – someone had to find a seamy element to this sooner or later. How he met up with someone else while behind bars is left unexplained but if this is correct it will not be the first time he has been involved with other women or confused reality with fantasy as shown in this article in the the Daily Mail.

 

Guessing from these stories and allegations it would seem that John Darwin is more comfortable in a fantasy world than in the real world. Maybe he himself realises this and is looking forward to a long stir of porridge, it could be just what he needs to avoid getting himself knotted up in further harebrained antics. Or perhaps, as an ex-prison officer, he is feeling a little homesick and wants to return to more familiar quarters. Who knows?

 

But to return to the initial question of this article, if JD were presented as the ultimate proof of the theory of life then intelligent design would come a very poor third in the race JD having displayed a total absence of IQ, natural selection staggers home in second place after failing miserably to do its job in eliminating a seriously weak link from the gene pool and on the basis of all the stories and fantasies involved in this tale Creationism wins by a mile.