Boiling frog

Uncommon card · No. 90826

The boiling frog is an apologue describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. Some 19th-century experiments, especially Fratscher's experiments in 1875, suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, but according to some modern biologists, the premise is false. They note that changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival in the wild, so a frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out.

Read on Wikipedia · Image James Lee FormerIP at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.0