The German octopus, the cross-eyed possum - do you think there's anything to animals picking winners?

Nothing at all.
Paul probably just recognized that Spain was the best team and that they were going to win.

viva espana ~

No. Just media attention.

No. How many animals out there are “picking winners”? Some have to “be right”.

Nah. What would be the evolutionary benefit to being able to pick a winning team? Well, I guess Paul won’t be anyone’s calamari… maybe.

@Blueroses You say “maybe”, I say “I predict that to be true”.

I don’t know if there is any science behind things like that, but honestly I don’t think there needs to be. Why would an animal know more about something like that than a human anyway? I’m guessing that the animals did no better than chance, and if that’s the case then there is no mystery.

They’re probably coincidences that drew attention because of their coincidental nature. The press found another way to distract from important things, and you took the bait hook, line, and sinker!

I dont know… on one hand im forced to say no its merely coincidence/chance and everything…. but on another its like that octopus did get every single one right somehow. I mean statistically speaking wtf are the chances of that even happening. If it is merely chance, its still pretty extraordinary imo.

Statistically speaking, if you have enough chimps rolling dice one of them will roll 10 ten times in a row.

If the octopus is anything like Jimmy Kimmel’s possum – then there be food behind the guess that the handler wants it to go to. Even then: the handler knows his shit it seems.

That was my first thought also. There has to be some food motivation for the creature’s choices which means it’s really a lucky or clever human-animal behind it. That’s impressive at the bookie window but nobody in the media is going to say “Aww. That’s so cool!”

@seazen true didnt consider that. But even still impressive on the humans part.

I remember years ago at AC there was a thing at one of the casinos where if you could beat a chicken in tic tac toe you won some obscene amount of money. The chicken would peck whichever spot it wanted to pick.

Well what was really goin on was there would be little slides behind each spot that would open revealing food that the chicken would then eat and activate that button. So really it was a computer you played against looking like it was the chicken that made the choices.

Though, still I must say in the case of the other animals it is a bit more impressive as there is a lot of chance involved with picking times and such.

It’s like playing Jeopardy against watson.

@seazen exactly. Cant win lol