Planting the Flag

Denial Depot’s Jaws: A movie review looks at the movie from a denialist perspective.

Matt Hooper from the “Oceanographic Institute” turns up. No-one seems to have called him, he just kind of appears. I’ve heard that scientists can actually smell sources of funding from up to 50 kilometers away. Hooper takes one look at the body and arrogantly proclaims:
“It wasn’t an ‘accident,’ it wasn’t a boat propeller, or a coral reef, or Jack the Ripper. It was a shark.”

What alarmist nonsense! He just blew through all those equally good explanations. And as the local pointed out “nobody’s seen a shark”. So it’s unscientific for Hooper to assert there definitely is a shark. He’s hiding the uncertainty and doubt. Of course if he admitted there wasn’t a shark all his funding would dry up…

I just want to point out that as far as Jaws being a movie about denialism, I got there first.