Paul the Octopus a reliable betting source - Seriously?? | Thebigtip

Anyone placing their bets based on the dietary desires of an octopus need to take a hard look at themselves and ask themselves the question - "am i really doing this?".

For those people that haven't heard about the latest phenomena let me fill you in. An octopus living in a tank at an Aquarium in West Germany has correctly predicted the outcome of every game that Germany has played in at the world cup, and has also prophesied that Spain will win the world cup in a live TV broadcast across Germany. Yes, that's right; this octopus has gained so much trust amongst the Germans that he is broadcast live on television across the nation so that people can rest easy knowing the outcome of the World Cup before it occurs.

The means by which this amazing 8 tentacled water dwelling cephalopod molusc predicts the future is by having two tanks lowered into his cage, each with a mussel inside and the flag on the nations competing on the outside of the tanks. Then in a stroke of amazing genius, this creature that is toted by scientists as the "most intelligent invertebrate" eats one of the mussels. The flag on the outside of the tank that Paul attacks is the team that is going to win...really?

The fact that the Octopus has to have food to encourage him to make a decision should be evidence enough that this is not a legitimate source to stake your hard earned money on. Not to mention that he's been wrong before, or that it would be really easy for humans to be tampering with the food so that the octopus chooses one mussel over the other.

Humans have this amazing ability to take rare occurences and turn them into some divine fate or destiny but this one really takes the cake in my books.

I understand that people can be superstitious, believing that entrails can predict someone's life, or that their hand holds their destiny, but if we're going to trust an Octopus that doesn't even know what the World Cup is, we have to put our own intelligence in question.