The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually. According to contemporary biologists the premise of the story is not literally true; a frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out. However, some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true, provided the heating is sufficiently gradual.
Read more about Boiling Frog: Cultural Usage, Scientific Background, Commentary
Famous quotes containing the words boiling and/or frog:
“Unmeasured power, incredible passion, enormous craft: no thought
apparent but burns darkly
Smothered with its own smoke in the human brain-vault: no thought
outside; a certain measure in phenomena:
The fountains of the boiling stars, the flowers on the foreland, the
ever-returning roses of dawn.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The owl is abroad, the bat and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountain;
The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,
And frog peeps out o’ the fountain.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)