"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." from MIB

That pretty much sums it up. An individual may take the time to educate him/herself about the world around him, including the animals that live in it. But people as a whole don't bother. They buy into media hyperbole, societal stereotypes, and ignorant myths. As a result, all snakes are evil and are partners with the devil in the same way cats, especially black cats, are partners with the witches; all pitbulls, German shepherds, rottweilers, and mastiffs are vicious dogs just waiting for the chance to turn on their owners and everyone else within reach; all rats are disgusting, dirty, disease carrying animals who will sooner eat you in your sleep than look at you; and for the sake of propriety and basic human respect, I won't even mention the stereotypes about people!

I've seen and heard a lot of it. I'm a field biologist, and as a part of my job I handle wild animals most people would rather kill without even looking at it. Sometimes I don't even want to talk about my job because I get tired of hearing people's emotional reactions of, "Ewww!!! How can you do that! That's so disgusting! You are going to get a disease! Why don't you just kill those animals instead?" In addition, I've had snakes in the past, and now have 2 rosy boas. I've been keeping rats as pets for some 20 years and bred them for some 10 years. One of my two dogs is part American Staffordshire and part Pointer, but all people see is a pitbull. In the past I had a 100 pound Rottie/Shepherd mix that people were terrified of, even though she was the biggest baby on the planet. So I get to hear it a lot. It is no less tiring the more you hear it either.