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The frog that doesn't get out of the water and allows itself to be boiled to death is a misnomer - the experiment involved a frog which had its brain removed II
by kobayashi 11y ago
The frog that doesn't get out of the water and allows itself to be boiled to death is a misnomer - the experiment involved a frog which had its brain removed IIRC, and a normal frog will just jump out.
That story bothers me almost as much as misattributed quotes.
Edit: ...uh, why the downvotes?
- jaytaylor 11y agoPerhaps due to no citation for claim?
- kobayashi 11y agoSource: http://conservationmagazine.org/2011/03/frog-fable-brought-to-boil/ http://conservationmagazine.org/2011/03/frog-fable-brought-t...
- yason 11y agoSince you brought up that detail I just wanted to remark that this is an interesting example of truth vs value. Most people don't know what sort of experiment it was. Now that you did mention it, I'm quite sure I've heard at least one alternative truth about the frog but I don't consciously remember it. The reason nobody cares is that the value of the story lies elsewhere from what actually happened or might have happened in reality. Nearly nobody was there so who knows (maybe there never even was a frog?) but as you know people use it to illustrate the scenario where something adapts to specific circumstances while failing to recognize the complete change. Interestingly, the story could actually be anything, like a scene from a well-known cartoon or any story or fairytale encompassing the same principle. Human understanding is as much about stories and words as it's about facts, and even more so for human communication.