The Inoculated Mind » Blog Archive » How to Predict the Super Bowl

Back in February 2006, Super Bowl XL surprised the experts. It was a low-scoring game that was predicted to be a high-scoring game. But one person, mentalist performer Adrian Saint, claimed to have predicted the outcome. An audio cassette was sealed in a box before the game, and removed in front of an audience, where it was placed in a stereo and turned on. The stereo played a perfect prediction of the score and and most valuable player of the game. The California Aggie reported that he successfully predicted the score of the game.

But he did not. He was no less surprised about the outcome of the game.
Adrian Saint, the stage name of Amir Ghasri, is a magician who was trying to make a name for himself by enlisting the help of a newspaper to report that he used statistics and probability to make predictions about, but not limited to, the Super Bowl. The backlash that he received for passing off a magic trick as the real deal, he blamed not on his own actions, but on the Aggie that had helped him to get free publicity.

Here on my blog I am going to tell you how Adrian Saint performed his trick. I am also going to explore how people can be easily deceived, and how logical fallacies contribute to such a phenomenon. I’m going to take you on a trip through my investigation of Adrian Saint’s Super Bowl Prediction, and some of the interesting things that I learned about the practice, philosophy, and treatment of magic.

It would be funny if he did predict this part.

Finally, I will seal the deal. With an analysis of the tape on which Adrian Saint’s “prediction” was recorded, I will give the final confirmation that will show that there is no reason to think that Amir Ghasri has a probabilistic or statistical insight that is any greater than the average human being. This post will remain at the top as a “sticky” as each chapter is added.