 I'm here to change the way you think about a 2700 year old fear. Yes, we're going to talk about shark attacks. In my position, the point that I would make is that at an ideas form, we're supposed to challenge the fundamental concepts of these ideas. And so I have three points. First, sharks do not attack. Second, rogue sharks don't exist. Third, people don't always react negatively to sharks following a shark bite. And it's on the basis of these three ideas that I'd like to engage today, because trying to govern ungovernable events distracts us from real shark bite prevention. So first, shark attack. Now this is a phrase that is invented. And just like other phrases, we see a story emerge. Dogs bite, be sting, cats scratch, elephants stomp, leeches leech, just to name five. And each of these comes from somewhere, and there's often a competition between one term and another. Shark attack comes to dominance from Australia in the mid 1930s. In Australia, from the early 1900s into the mid 1930s, when sharks bit people, they were called a number of things. Shark bite, shark incident, and yes, shark attack. But the most common phrase was shark accident. Even when a shark bite was fatal, this was a tragic beach accident, a shark accident. However, a fight was brewing between a well-meaning and well-known Sydney surgeon and shark researcher, Dr. Victor Cropelsen and US researchers. Dr. Cropelsen was upset because in the US, it was their position that sharks don't bite north of the Caribbean. It's not even a shark accident, it mustn't have been a shark. So Dr. Cropelsen set out to prove that sharks attack as a public service. And he wrote the authoritative journal article of its day, which stated that the evidence that sharks will attack man is complete. The year was 1934. The phrase shark accident begins to disappear. And the US defined shark attack in 1958. So sharks attack not because of a change in shark behavior, but because of a fight between researchers. Second point. In the Gospel according to Jaws, rogue sharks are sharks that get a taste for human flesh. Now this is also an invention, that comes to us starting in Egypt in Port Said in 1899. The British Medical Journal has reported on three cases of shark bite that have occurred on the same day, in the same general area, and it's concluded that it must be the same shark. So it's here, along the banks of the Suez Canal, which is built between 1859 and 1869, that the rogue shark theory is born. However, I know as a humble social scientist and third year PhD student that there's no evidence of any shark ever getting a taste for human flesh. Again, any ever. And I also know that there's considerable evidence among scientists, again of which I'm not one, that construction waste along coastlines can very much increase the chances of humans and sharks interacting more. So to recap, sharks attack because of a fight between researchers, and the rogue shark theory is more likely a story about construction waste in the Suez Canal. Third point. People don't always have a negative emotional reaction following a shark bite. But to prove that to you, I would need to go to a beach, survey how people felt about sharks, then there would need to be a shark bite incident at that beach so I could go back and survey again. The problem is this has never happened before. Until now. In June and October of 2011, I was at Fish Hook and Musenburg beaches in Cape Town, South Africa. And I surveyed the beachgoers. And I asked how much pride do you feel in the local shark populations? And they responded with a little, average, or a lot. And as you can see in blue, it's a little. And in red, it's average and a lot. The numbers are basically the same. And the bottom certainly doesn't drop out of feelings toward sharks. So what does this all do? It begs a larger question, which is what happens if you remove the social inventions around humans and sharks? First, you move forward away from this fear. Second, you begin to treat all fish like fish and have beach safety programs based on reality rather than myth. And third, you move shark bites from the social world of Hollywood and cable news into the natural world, where we appreciate nature even when the earthquakes, lightning strikes, or accidents happen. It's in this changed world of humans and sharks that we understand that we're in the way, not on the menu. Thank you.