The Boiled Frog
The "boiled frog" story is indeed a kind of "old folk warning," an all-purpose didactic anecdote particularly favored by business types to illustrate the point that moving too recklessly and aggressively may leave one with an empty pot, but traversing a steadier course of more gradual change is much more Ribbit! Likely to bring about the desired result. The explanation usually given why a slowly-boiled frog will complacently remain in a pan of water, even to his death, while a quickly-boiled one will try to escape, is something like the following:
I am told the above instructions work because frogs are cold-blooded. This means its body temperature is the same as the surroundings, unlike us human beings. We are warm-blooded, meaning our body temperature is kept more or less constant, and does not follow that of our surroundings. We shiver in cold weather to keep up our body temperature. We sweat in warm weather to cool ourselves down.
The frog’s body temperature follows its surroundings. If you put the frog directly in boiling water, it will sense the heat immediately and jump out. But when you heat the water slowly, the frog keeps adjusting to the rising temperature. When the heat is too much for the frog to take, it is too late. The frog collapses and dies.
The boiling frog story states that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough—it is said 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 never jump out.
The story is generally told in a figurative context, with the upshot being that people should make themselves aware of gradual change lest they suffer a catastrophic loss.
Nearly everyone agrees that the lesson is valuable. |
