Darwinism In Action

I realize that the following news story is depicting a tragedy - a man died after being bitten on the leg by a shark. Presumably, that bite severed his femoral artery and he bled out or went into shock, since he died soon after getting to the hospital. But looking at the background of the story, and the events surrounding the shark attack - which the odds are greater that the average person will be struck by lightning than bitten by a shark, by the way - lead me to believe that this whole thing was not only preventable, but a needless, stupid death.

Diver in chummed waters dies after shark bite

So let's look at this. The dive company that charters these trips says on its website that they chum (throw fish parts and blood into) the water in order to attract the sharks to the dive site. Then they send in the tourists without benefit of a shark cage or any other type of protection, so that the divers can get up close and personal with a creature that is so perfect in its design (to hunt, kill, eat and make baby sharks) that it has remained pretty much unchanged since the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Now from what I understand from Sharkbait and the nature and science channels on cable television, your average shark is not out to kill humans. But when there's food in the water - chum, in this case - they're also not the most disciminating of eaters, either. In other words, they're like most animals. Get between them and what they think is dinner, and you're in trouble.

This was dumb. This was tragic. And hopefully this company will either reformat their trips to include shark cages or go out of business altogether. There are plenty of ridiculous ways to die in the world (such as text messenging while driving; the TN state assembly is voting on a law to prevent this due to numerous accidents and deaths), without paying thousands to go and stand in front of a hungry shark while holding a sign that reads, "I'm food!"