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>Inky is not the first octopus to attract the spotlight. In the summer of 2010, Paul, an octopus in Germany, gained worldwide attention when he appeared to corr
by kobayashi 11y ago
>Inky is not the first octopus to attract the spotlight. In the summer of 2010, Paul, an octopus in Germany, gained worldwide attention when he appeared to correctly pick the winning team in all seven of Germany’s games at the World Cup in South Africa — a feat that inspired a song. He has been immortalized in Oberhausen, Germany, with a six-foot plastic replica of him clutching a soccer ball.
To me, this cheapens the article. There are readers who are going to think that the octopus actually predicted those wins, when any thoughtfully rational observer would understand that it was merely a lucky happenstance.
- sarreph 11y agoYeah that was totally unnecessary in an article otherwise promoting the lesser-known intelligence of octopi.
- davidw 11y agoYeah, your basic octopus scam where you get a bunch of octupi and have them predict results from sports games, and advertise the results of the one that has managed to "predict" the most results.
- Tomte 11y agoNope, it and only it was seriously followed by tabloids and reputable newspapers alike at least from the second match on. Sure, it was chance. But not a "pick a winner in hindsight" scam.
- scottru 11y agoGimlet Media did a really fun story talking about Paul in the context of superpredictors. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/58-earth-pony/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/58-earth-pony/