Can we retire the whole frog-in-boiling water metaphor? Can we collectively, as a society, take its amphibious body, throw it in a pot, and crank up the fire until it explodes? I swear, I’ve heard pundits on talk radio mention frogs and boiling water over a dozen times in the past two weeks, and each time I hear it makes me want to punch my radio.
The boiling frog metaphor is so ubiquitous these days I doubt it needs an explanation. But on the off chance someone reading this has been lucky enough to avoid ever hearing it, the gist of the metaphor goes something like this: If you put a frog the frog in boiling water, it will jump out and avoid being cooked. However, if you put a frog in cold water and slowly raise the temperature to boiling, it will happily hang about until it’s cuisses de grenouilles soupe. Back in the mid-1990s it was used as a metaphor by business consultants to convince people that investing heavily into tech companies that lost money hand over fist was the way of the future. (And to be fair, up until the bubble broke it was). Over the past several years, however, it’s become a fashionable tool for terrible political pundits.
I really, really hate this metaphor. It’s constantly thrown into political discussions and presented as either a reasoned argument for action or evidence that proves a supposition, despite the fact that it is clearly neither. Rather, the boiling frog is just a lazy excuse not to have to bother thinking critically about whatever ludicrously hyperbolic comment one can dream up. It’s not bad as a folksy, Ross-Perot-y throw way line, I guess, but the way the punditry use it today renders it entirely meaningless.
For example, it’s often used as an “argument” to “prove” pretty much any Obama-conspiracy theory, no matter how silly:
Conservative Pundit: It’s obvious that Obama is trying to create a hybrid Stalinist-Nazi state and destroy America; in fact, he will soon make churches illegal and shut them down.
Normal Person: That’s absurd. Do you have even a shred of data to back that up?
Conservative Pundit: It’s true, you just won’t listen! If you put a frog in cold water and turn on the stove, it doesn’t notice and then it dies!
Of course, you can also use the boiling frog metaphor as an “argument” to “prove” that opposing Obama is part of a conspiracy to create a hybrid Stalinist-Nazi state, or that the entire world economy is on the verge of collapse, or that the dolphins must be stopped because soon they will have the technology to sweep across the lands and enslave us all. Because really, the frog-in-boiling-water metaphor is just a pseudo-deep way to say “because I said so, that’s why.”
And if that’s not enough reason to retire the metaphor, there’s also this: it isn’t actually true. In fact, it’s literally the opposite of true. As Professor Douglas Melton of Harvard Biology points out, “If you put a frog in boiling water, it won’t jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot—they don’t sit still for you.”
So I say it’s time to take this terrible, lazy and inaccurate metaphor and throw it into boiling water until it explodes and I never, ever have to hear it again.
That is all.
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Bu.. Bu.. Bu.. Obamacare will destroy us all!Report
It starts with stupid metaphors about amphibians in hot water but soon leads down a slippery slope until most of our dialogue is consumed by trite quips, logic errors and faux info gleaned off the Internet. We must Do Something to Protect the Children.Report
I was trying to protect the children when I threw out that dirty bathwater, and now I can’t find the baby anywhere.Report
If only I could get someone to protect me from the children…..Report
Sure you joke Glyph, but somewhere, most likely in Florida, someone is dealing with this very problem and posting about it on Facebook.Report
Anytime there is a weird news story, even if the event being reported on didn’t take place in Florida, keep reading. There is almost always a Florida connection, somewhere in there. Six Degrees Of Florida Weirdness.Report
“Florida Man”Report
I just saw that recently. Florida Man keeps busy.Report
Florida Man and Bat Boy. Dey sho’ nuff keepin’ law enforcement busy down at those latitudes.Report
My younger sprout just returned from a trade show in Florida; he says it’s the water, to start out with. Not fit for drinking, bathing babies, or boiling frogs. Imbibe at risk of developing a weird Florida connection.Report
Carl Hiassen: The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It’s hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.Report
If Florida weren’t like that, we wouldn’t have Dave Barry or Carl Hiaasen.Report
Russians were put upon the earth to show the rest of mankind what suffering looks like, lest anyone else should complain overmuch.
Florida was similarly established to show mankind what craziness really looks like.Report
It’s kind of like the slippery slope argument… once you start you can’t stop and end up in a horrible place.Report
It seems to me that it’s exactly like the slippery slope argument. Now there’s nothing wrong with arguing the existence of a slippery slope, but it’s up to the arguer to demonstrate the slope exists, mere assertion is not good enough.Report
it’s up to the arguer to demonstrate the slope exists
And that it’s slippery. There are two distinct issues that require demonstration.Report
Seems to me you’re just throwing the baby out with the frog water.Report
Curse, you Glyph.Report
Curse, you Glyph.
Hmm, an imperative. OK.
FISHSTICKS!Report
I didn’t know that there is a throw a from in boiling water metaphor. My grasp of my own language is limited and weak. Sad face.Report
Those responsible for killing the U. S. science initiative will soon assign Professor Melton to the dustbin of history unless he proves his research was 100% industry funded and thus met the Bush administration’s standard for sound science.Report
Can we also get rid of the stupid “underpants gnomes” term, too?Report
no. because if we do how else to explain the “logic” of the defund obamacare via the debt ceiling movement.Report
Tod, James Fallows has been doing the Lord’s work on this metaphor for some time, though from a more literal angle.Report
And may God bless James Fallows.Report