Certain scientists in Australia are utterly baffled as to why “Sharks are nine times more likely to kill men than women.” 

We also have:

“Men are targeted in 84 per cent of all unprovoked shark attacks, and make up 89 per cent of all shark bite fatalities - which means that women are statistically more likely to survive a shark attack.”

In spite of the scientific obsession with evolution these “scientists” just can’t seem to assemble obvious explanatory candidates.

Might this be because the PC “scientific” left treats evolution exactly the same way it treats the Constitution, which means that invocation is done on a basis of strait-jacketed convenience? 

According to the Telegraph article, the scientists offer, on a completely speculative basis, that the above differences might be ascribable to the idea that “Potentially men spend more time in the water, and are more risk-prone.”

Maybe there is something to this; maybe not.

However, one thing is perfectly clear: sharks that attack people are streamlined predators, and are not vegans.  Therefore, they love tasty, meaty meals.

The notions that men tend to have more mass than women (thereby yielding, all else equal, a better return for the effort and the risk), and that they might therefore tend to disturb the water more (which has implications so obvious they are not even worth mentioning) may well have passed through the minds of the eggheads “scientists”, but, even if they did, they seem not to have allowed them to pass from their lips onto the printed page.

To have done so, of course, would be, ironically enough, too redolent of biological differences that are a bit more difficult to change than how often one goes to the beach.

Such is “science” in these very “scientific” times.

Happily, though, a good scientists did make sure to mention this:

People patting sharks on the head, making them angry, putting their hand in the shark's mouth to get a fishing hook out. Jumping on sharks and trying to ride them. There are provoked shark attacks that should win Darwin Awards.

So, maybe the idea is that sharks are more likely to bite and kill men than women because of evolution after all.

Men are far dumber than women, you see, which would explain everything.

It kind of reminds you of nearly every television commercial you’ve seen over the last twenty years, doesn’t it? 

Dr. Jason Kissner is associate professor of criminology at California State University, Fresno.  You can reach him at crimprof2010@hotmail.com.