We have all heard the warning that frogs put in a pan of water will remain there so long as the water is brought to a boil very slowly. The analogy is often used to call people to action in slowly developing crises such as climate change. Fortunately or unfortunately, the analogy is a wive’s tale according to Snopes (see link below). Frogs will not sit while their environment slowly becomes lethal. Apparently human beings are the only species that will do that.
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
I’ve heard that in the 1869 a German scientist name Friedrich Goltz successfully proved in an experiment that the frog will stay in the slowly heated pot. What is lost in the retelling is that in order to keep the frog in the pot Goltz lobotomized the frog first, and removed its entire brain. His intention in the experiment was to “search for the location of the soul”
Martin, that is kind of an important detail. Apparently the experiment was repeated with some success back then, but not in modern times.