Paul the Octopus... psychic, smart or just lucky.

[Don Blazys]

Even though he has 8 legs, Paul the Octopus,

(who you can read about here):

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_(octopus)

 

has never played soccer,

or even seen a soccer match.

 

Yet, he can predict with 100% accuracy,

which team will win in any particular game!

 

He recently decided to demonstrate his remarkable abilities

to a very skeptical scientific community, so he correctly predicted

the outcomes of all 8 games in the "World Cup" finals !

 

Still, there are those who remain skeptical

and stubbornly insist that he was somehow "cheating"

or that it was all just a matter of "luck"!

 

Disgusted by their lack of faith, Paul has decided to retire,

and will never again amaze us with his incredibly accurate predictions.

 

Don.

[CraigD]

LOL!

 

Of course you must be joking, Don. Paul the octopus is an octopus, who like any octopi, will open boxes and eat shellfish when offered them, regardless of the flags displayed on the boxes. His keepers at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen are quick to point out that Paul’s string of successes are certainly due to chance, and their having staged his box-picking exhibitions so that he chose each game result only once, and chose few enough games that there was a reasonable probability of a news media-attractive string of successes. That he beat 1:256 odds to get all 8 picks right was good fortune for the Sea Life Center, as it’ll surely increase interest and attendance better than if he’d missed a few, as was the case in the Center’s last octopus football picking publicity stunt, or Paul's 2010 costar/competitor, Mani the card-picking Parakeet, who had only 5 of 7 correct picks.

 

Most statistics and science popularizers explain successes like Paul and Mani’s as due to sampling bias, asserting that many organizations and individuals stage animal-winner choosing events, but only those with a string of successes gain international media attention. It would be a worthy work of journalistic research to find and report the many unsuccessful animal oracles of the 2010 World Cup and similar competitions, and show that they collectively don’t defy statistical expectation, but likely a little appreciated one, as most people credulous of claims of ESP octopi, prescient parakeets and the like want to believe in these claims, and won’t be swayed by evidence counter to them, while those who are not tend to feel little need to prove what we’re already confident is true. Some of the minority of skeptics who feel called to debunk paranormal/supernatural claims in general might take up these cases, though the fact that Paul’s keepers make no serious claim to other than a run of good luck, is likely to keep debunking stories low-key, as debunkers seem to me to prefer taking on true charlatans, not honest publicity-seekers.

[Moontanman]

Disgusted by their lack of faith, Paul has decided to retire,

and will never again amaze us with his incredibly accurate predictions.

 

Don.

 

Yes, there is no doubt that Paul will never again predict another world cup game, Paul will be long dead before the world cup is played again, kinda sad really but if the octopus lived as long as humans we would probably be in a cage predicting the outcomes of the octopus world cup

[CraigD]

Yes, there is no doubt that Paul will never again predict another world cup game, Paul will be long dead before the world cup is played again …

True – as best I can tell, common octopi like Paul rarely live more than 2 years in either the wild or captivity.

 

The folk at Oberhausen have a solution to that problem, however – they just name whatever octopus they use for a given winner-picking publicity stunt “Paul”. Though he looked just like the present one, the Paul that picked the 2008 Euro winners (5 of 7 correct), was a different octopus.

[Don Blazys]

Quoting CraigD:

Of course you must be joking, Don.

 

Initially, I wanted to begin this topic with a "tongue in cheek" smiley,

so I searched the entire list of smileys, only to find that it didn't exist!

 

I then thought about substituting either:

;) :moon: or

but finally decided that to the sufficiently astute reader,

my reputation as a logical and rational Hypographer

should serve as ample evidence that I was indeed joking.

 

Note that the Wikipedia article on Paul the Octopus

documents him holding a "press conference".

 

What's next ?

 

Oprah Winfrey interviewing him on her T.V. show ?!!!

 

Don.