Assuming 50% chance of correct prediction (which it is, since it's an octopus and doesn't know which teams are better), the chance of being 8/8 out of pure luck is (1/2)^8 or 1/256 or 0.039%. Freaky stuff.
I once hit black on the roulette table 14 times in a row at a casino in New Mexico. The octopus basically did it 8 times. I am PSYCHIC too!!!
Why are there "no" votes here? I don't get it. Paul clearly has pre-cognitive abilities. This helps many octopi survive in the wild.
It seems like an easy to plan hoax. Just make a prediction and get the octopus to swim to it. They could use food scents or just make a video until the octopus goes to the one you want it to.
remember when NFL Gameday from the PS1/PS2 days predict correctly the superbowl winners for like 6 years in a row?
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ya85knuDzp8&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ya85knuDzp8&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
if you are tossing a fair coin, then it is. i don't think that's the case. somebody must've done something behind the scene. most of the picks are pretty safe picks. probably something like p=.99. LOL
Were they really safe picks? I was under the impression that Germany was favored in both their losses; and that they weren't favored in at least one or two of their wins.
It's just random chance. For Euro 2008 he had 4 correct and 2 incorrect. There were animal "oracles" from all over the world that made predictions but Paul started getting them right and got all the attention.
Yeah, I agree. Its like if 300 people in a room each flipped a coin 8 straight times. Let's say one person happens to flip heads each time. The chances of any one person doing that is extremely low, but if you have 300 people doing it there's a decent chance at least one of them will get heads 8 straight times. Does that make that one person a magical coin-flipper? No. Its just a fluke. Now, if you pick that person out of a crowd, and ask him to repeat the feat and he does -- that would be something. I'd think its a biased coin in that case.
Certainly true - and if we only heard about Paul the Octopus *after* all of his picks, it would not be noteworthy. What makes it a fascinating (and yet still coincidental) story is that we heard about him - and only him - before his last several picks. We started really hearing about him before his last 4 picks or so. Statistically speaking, if we started with 256 of these animal oracles, 16 of them would have been 4-0 at that point. And of those, only 1 would get to 8-0. But after 4-0, we only really heard about 1. And that one then went 4-0. That's what makes it a fun story. That said, there are really still only two plausible explanations: 1. One of those random things (1-in-16 if start at the 4-0 mark) 2. God has a sense of humor and likes to play mind tricks on people
