Paul: January 2008 – October 26, 2010
Paul the Psychic Octopus died today. I’m told he went quietly in his sleep. I have to say, unlike the conflicted PZ Myers, I rather liked Paul. He was in fact my favorite “psychic” out there.
To his credit, he did one thing most sham psychics fail at, predictive accuracy. He correctly “predicted” the outcome of 8 out of 8 games in the 2010 World Cup. I mean, not bad for a little cephalopod. Sure it was just a string of 50/50 chance occurrences, but hey, John Edwards didn’t predict all 8 games. Nor did Sylvia Browne or Alison Dubois. Let’s face it. Paul smoked ‘em all.
But of course the main reason I liked Paul was that he demonstrated quite well how idiotic all this psychic nonsense really is.
Here’s to you, Paul, the greatest psychic fraud of all time.
Related articles
- Paul, the Psychic World Cup Octopus, is Dead (towleroad.com)
- “Paul The Psychic Octopus Is Dead” and related posts (whoateallthepies.tv)
- A Sheep’s Homage to Paul the Octopus (pamil-visions.net)
May he rest in peace!