Can an octopus predict football matches?
Sections of the media have become very excited about the fact that apparently an octopus in Germany has correctly predicted the outcome of every World Cup game that Germany has played in South Africa. Typical of the coverage is this piece.
A few points are worth noting. First, statistically this is not a big deal. Each game, the octopus has a 50:50 chance – you might as well toss a coin. Second, he doesn’t always get it right – according to this item, he only managed to predict correctly less than 70 per cent of the Germany team’s results in the 2008 European Championship. Third, Paul – that’s the name of the creature – is British and displayed no such talent when he was in England.
July 8th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
To be fair to him though, he didn’t have to be psychic to predict England’s results.
Anyway, don’t mock him – his powers may be greater than just being able to predict football matches.
There was a joke going around about ‘what has got eight legs, no spine and is predicting Germany to win? The Match of the Day panel’. I didn’t say it was a good joke. And it is out of date now, but hey ho.
July 12th, 2010 at 11:30 am
On reflection, Paul’s ability to ‘predict’ these games has given me cause to revise my view.
I now don’t believe he has psychic powers at all. I think he is using that as a cover for a vast organised crime network’s betting syndicate. As evidence for this consider 1) he has been ‘right’ with each predicition, and 2) his tentacles spread all over.