Comments on: Germany has a magic octopus

By: Abhi

Abhi — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:47:37 +0000

Its nothing but just mere probability.The probabality in the case of predicting one winning team out of two teams is very high and logically its just an octopus just like any other octopus.So assuming this to be a real prediction is something irrational and irrelevant.I hope some people would agrre with me.

Abhi

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:24:55 +0000

Put the octopus in your as.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 04:27:26 +0000

German zoos have been letting all sorts of animals try to predict the outcome of the matches, and Germany has only played three games so far, the odds were pretty good that at least one animal would be perfect up to now.

I was wondering about that. I figured. So, what will happen to the animals that are always, consistently wrong? Will they get some kind of prize too?

Thanks for the link. I’ll FBS that.

By: Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 04:22:57 +0000

As of this writing, he has only made three successful picks this world cup, and 4 out of 5 on a previous year. “Slightly better than random” is an overstatement at this point. Especially since, as part of a publicity campaign, German zoos have been letting all sorts of animals try to predict the outcome of the matches, and Germany has only played three games so far, the odds were pretty good that at least one animal would be perfect up to now.

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/06/paul-octopus.html
includes a link to Der Spiegel online, where they have a nice photo gallery of some of the predicting animals.

By: Mike Haubrich

Mike Haubrich — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:34:44 +0000

I think those people in robes are merely wearing the German flag.