Do you have a favorite shark?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The odds are exactly the issue. The idea that you should be even a little bit concerned about being bitten by a shark is ludicrous. You’ve got a better chance of being struck by lightning while on your way to claim your lottery winnings.

Boru

That is disingenuous to say the least. 

The odds of a primarily land dwelling primate ever being bitten by Shark is a little different from The odds of The said primate being bitten by a shark when the said primate has some reason to be fearful of being bitten by a shark, such as when it flatters itself into thinking it is doing what is euphemistically called swimming in water that are actually known to be frequented by man eating sharks.

Well, Brian lives in the US, so we'll use those figures.

Out of a population of 330 000 000, about 180 000 000 Americans make a combined 2 billion beach visits every year (on average). Obviously, not everyone who visits a beach goes into the water on every visit, so let's reduce that number. Let's reduce it a LOT and take out the people who are there to lie in the sun or play frisbee or collect seashells and so on. Let's reduce it by a factor of ten (that's probably too much, but I want to be as generous as possible) and say that only 1/10 of everyone who visits a beach goes into the water and is at risk of a shark bite. That leaves 200 000 000. Out of those two hundred million, the average number of people in the US who have the potential to be bitten by a shark andARE actually bitten is...50.  The average number of fatalities from shark attacks is 2. This means that the percentage chance you have of being bitten by a shark while in 'water that are actually known to be frequented by man eating sharks' is 0.000025.

While I agree that that this is an infinitely greater chance of a shark bite than that of someone who never leaves, say, Kansas, it's still a small enough percentage that it's bloody silly to spend any time worrying that it might happen.

What's disingenuous about that?

Boru