Why are we afraid of sharks? There's a scientific explanation.

Sharks aren't the mindless killers that we've made them out to be.

Sharks, especially great whites, were catapulted into the public eye with the release of the film Jaws in the summer of 1975. The film is the story of a massive great white that terrorizes a seaside community, and the image of the cover alone—the exposed jaws of a massive shark rising upward in murky water—is enough to inject fear into the hearts of would-be swimmers. Other thrillers have perpetuated the theme of sharks as villans.

But where did our fear of sharks come from, and how far back does it go? That and other shark-related inquiries below.

"The question implies they shouldn't be," says David Ropeik, a consultant on risk perception and author of the book

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