Shark Attacks on the Rise

My family and I are planning a trip to the beach this summer. I have been searching for fun family activities and watching the local weather as our excitement grows for some fun, water, and family time.

As I was preparing for the trip, I saw an article about a shark attack close to the beach we are visiting. It interested me and I started to read the article. I realized it was a few years old but still caught me off guard.

Because I read the article, the computer algorithms took note. They started to present all sorts of shark attack news articles for me. They find your interests and then continue to find news articles that match your interests. Because one article was on sharks, more shark articles popped up.

I didn’t realize what was happening at first. I started to see tons of articles about sharks. It happened to overlap with National Geographic’s Sharkfest. I watched a few shows on shark attacks.

It is funny because I wrote a book, You Can’t Surf from the Shore, about being fearful of sharks and then surfing in the ocean, overcoming my fear. I have done research on shark attacks to know that they are uncommon and rare.

But the increase in shark attack news brought a new awareness and attention to them. I was having a conversation with a friend who pointed out that they can’t believe how many shark attacks happened this year. I agreed and we talked about some of the areas that were hit the hardest.

But then I caught myself. I know how the news function works on my phone. I know that they promote articles based on what I previously read. To find out the truth, I did some research.

I found several sources of shark attack data. I pulled the information in Excel and began running pivot tables and filters to analyze the raw numbers.

I found that there isn’t an increase in shark attacks this year. The highest year recorded was 2015. Yet in 2015 I wasn’t aware of the large numbers. This year there are significantly less, yet I am more aware of them.

In other words, my perception didn’t match reality. I was wrong.

In Think Again by Adam Grant, he says, “Most of us are accustomed to defining ourselves in terms of our beliefs, ideas, and ideologies. This can become a problem when it prevents us from changing our minds as the world changes and knowledge evolves. Our opinions can become so sacred that we grow hostile to the mere thought of being wrong, and the totalitarian ego leaps in to silence counterarguments, squash contrary evidence, and close the door on learning.”

I enjoyed reading Think Again. Most people scoff at those who change their minds but Grant points out that to learn we must be willing to accept something other than what we already know.

Learning should be as much about dispelling misconceptions in our knowledge base as introducing us to new insight. We must be willing to accept that we are wrong in order to improve our understanding.

In Think Again Grant shares insight he received from Ray Dalio, the Bridgewater founder. Dalio told Grant, “If you don’t look back at yourself and think, ‘Wow, how stupid I was a year ago,’ then you must not have learned much in the last year.”

I guess I’m pretty lucky then because I see how stupid I was in the past quite often, including this shark attack increase myth I bought into.