Or, as Stuart Smalley says, “it’s okay to feel upset.”

Instead of criticizing the Tiger shark that ate the Haitian immigrants, maybe it is better to ask why would anyone believe that a shark has a different “motive” when eating certain edible foods, but not (gulp.) others, i.e., human limbs.

“Like a Bonsai tree I like to trim!” a Tiger shark might say.

Not that I know for sure, but my guess is that, as a general proposition, like many lemmings or sheep, people that subscribe to “groupthink” often blend bona fide shark knowledge with their own idealistic (sometimes fantastic) rendition of shark reality, and the result is the kind of perverted Science that is wielded in other contexts and should be equally disfavored to uphold the integrity of Science.

Ok, fine. Climate can “change” due to natural forces. Accurate Science. But the changes documented in the last 200 years cannot be explained by this cause because the aforementioned “natural forces” unfold over geologic time. So one cannot condone the misplaced application of Science to reach the desired result, knowing that Gracian was right: “everyone acts according to self-interest.”

People drown all the time.

And some are undoubtedly eaten by sharks before and after the event.

Do we know this or don’t we?

I have a brother in law who is a lifeguard/national guard in Oahu- believe me, many of the bodies that the authorities “find” in these underwater gulleys are partially eaten.

(enter Big Momma voice) “And it ain’t by flipper.”

Now then, can science or an autopsy necessarily determine which was the true cause of death with reliable accuracy 10 times out of 10?

I say no.

Imagine that Chile girl was swimming alone.

If her leg was bitten off and she drowned, could we tell?

I say not necessarily. As fools wish for a “good outcome” for the perception of a species they purport to objectively understand, as they whisper wishes into a well.

By way of example- Heather Boswell was attacked in the open ocean by a hungry migrating White shark (youtube search “shark takes woman’s leg for the data). Let us assume, arguendo that she drowned after the attack; and then her carcass was subsequently scavenged by, say, a nomadic oceanic whitetip, isn’t it true that the “evidence” would actually mislead us? I.e., though it appears she drowned first and was scavenged by the whitetip, the evidence of the first attack was, er, bitten off by the White shark. Any bite marks left by the first shark was eaten away by the subsequent shark. Accordingly, the temporal proximty of death by drowning and shark attack obscured, like blood drifting out into the blue in endless streams: irretrievable.

Is this scenario not possible? My worst dream.

But Science is not “reasonable” nor affected by individual likes and aversions, as neither hope nor fear can alter the seasons.

It simply works and is.

And while I think lcm is a both a scholar and a gentleman, his approach to understanding sharks is intrinsically flawed in certain respects.

Why?

Because, like many others, he WANTS one thing to be true about sharks and I find that reality is often the other.

Then again, as a shark, it is easy to find fault in people’s perceptions.

Yet so easy to bite off a limb and just flee!

That is why statistics are meaningless in some senses.

Restated, anyone can extrapolate truths from numbers. Yet, as Einstein once noted, “As far as the laws of mathmatics are concerned, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

Translation:

Wonderful. The International Bureau of Shark Attacks dispenses numbers like a pez machine. In fact, the numbers say there is nothing to fear and sharks “are more afraid of us than we are of them.” While figures lie and liars figure, no statistic ever bit a woman’s leg off as food like the Chile shark did- the eyewitness stated “the White shark was lingering around after the attack, as if it wasn’t fully fed.”

As the wounded leg, pulled onto the boat, bled and bled.

I would neither shape nor conform but rather see the White shark through the selfsame eye that the shark sees me: blackened in its purity, purged of any desire to think or feel.

It’s ruthlessness allows it to survive amidst appearances: the unreal.

Apprehending what is in front of me, the savage shark glides onward away into the emerald blue without the slightest remorse.

Perhaps our journey through science would be easier were we disburdened of this unseasonable deference to another’s opinion for the mere sake it is so.

Columbus found the New World because others said “no”.

Underwater Hawaiian pilgrim got scalped.

There is no distinction to the Tiger shark that sees all, kills all, always searching and searching for opportunities veiled to our eyes, in the relentless procession of life, they alone cull the helpless and stranded, disbanded, adrift, in the open sea.

A bump in the night, floating in the Florida Straits.

First a tug. A pull.

Then me.