4 ms·

The author talking about the Boiling Frog myth as a fact is quite ironic in this context.

• mikeash 12y ago
  Well, when used as an analogy, it doesn't have to be correct. But still, you're right. While looking this up, I came across the craziest sentence in the Wikipedia article: "German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C." Apparently this isn't quite as crazy as it sounds, as the brainless frogs still exhibit some reflexes, to the extent that they'll jump out of hot water. But still, it reads like a study in "WTF did you expect to happen?!"
  • pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >"WTF did you expect to happen?!" // Often we all assume something and so no one really investigates it properly. Science must concern itself with things we think we know are a priori truths in order to provide a solid basis for building on. That said Goltz experiment seems quite reasonable to me, ~"do frogs have non-brain based reflexes that react to temperature?", ~"do frogs react to absolute temperatures or just changes in temperature". https://archive.org/stream/studiesfrombiol00martgoog#page/n405/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/studiesfrombiol00martgoog#page/n4... at p.389 suggests that the frog with "no cerebrum" is in some way alive in Goltz experiment - perhaps it is missing that point that makes you say WTF? It seems the excitability of headless frogs in varying temperatures was quite a point of interest, see eg p.393 ibid.
    • mikeash 12y ago
      It's just a knee-jerk reaction, "Duh, of course the frog with no brain doesn't jump." The difference between intuition and reality is the humor here.