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Which came first the Chicken? or the Egg?
dacampbell
Member Posts: 4
"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Asking this question always gets a chuckle from a group of kids who haven't been asked that before. For adults, it confirms their conviction that unanswerable questions must be laughably ignored. For a farmer who gets into the egg business by purchasing a group of laying hens the answer is easy. "My chickens came first; that's how I got my eggs."
Comments
Its not an unanswerable question, its actually rather easy once you understand evolution. Technically, a bird that was close to but not quite close enough genetically to be called a chicken laid an egg. Inside that egg was a bird that was just barely close enough to be called a chicken. Congratulations, the egg is the answer, you can stop debating it.
Want an unanswerable question? Start asking people what happened before the so called "big bang".
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
OK...let me get this straight:
Billions of years ago, when the earth was a soupy mess, some hunky looking protein became attracted to a foxy amino acid. They came together and -poof- a living thing came into being. Then eons go by and suddenly, by some genetic malfunction, the descendants of said protein/amino acid get-together didn't completely split apart, so now we have multi-celled something-or-others. (Question: if these guys didn't split completely apart, how did they actually reproduce to further this supposed advance in evolution?) Then, after more eon, the cells that make up these multi-celled things started to specialize, i.e.; eyes, intestines, skin, etc. Then, after more eons, one of these mutli-celled things got washed onto shore and, instead of drying up and dying, it grew roots and began photosynthesizing energy from the sun. And another multi-celled thing washed ashore and didn't die from lack of a watery atmosphere, but instead grew legs and started walking around. Oh yes...forgot these multi-celled things that were still in the oceans had begun to produce eggs as a means of reproducing. So, now the land-based things are in a quandray as to how to reproduce. It seems some kept returning to the ocean to lays eggs, while others somehow figured out how to lay eggs on land without them drying up and perishing.
So this about sums it up? Seems the chicken (or multi-celled thing) came first after all.
Oh well, accidents will happen.
Eggs were around long before Chickens or even birds in general for that matter. Reptiles were laying them during the Permian Period and bony fishes were laying them all the way back to the Devonian Period. The Egg predates the Chicken by well over 350 million years. Question solved.
Bren
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In nature, living things evolve through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote the first cell of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote. Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken. Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.
Roaster than chicken.
Roaster plus the chicken equals an egg.
When God had two of both animals on the ark there had to be a male and family of all animals, right?
The chicken because something evolved to become the chicken and then the chicken laid and egg then laid an egg and there Gallus gallus domesticus was born.
Well if you look at it in a cristian point of view the chicken cause god just created the animals and then they reproduced.
So there you have it. Neither came first but in the terms you used and if I had to choice between the two, the chicken came first.
The answer to this question is very simple ofcourse the chicken came first, because how will the egg appear if there is no chicken. Confused? here is how, first of all we do know that we need an egg so that we can have a chicken, and a chicken is used lay an egg and to have another chicken. But God created the animals during the creation of the world therefore the chicken comes first. He didnt say let there be eggs instead animals referring to live creatures such as the chicken. Got it? hehe..
he researchers are wrong. In terms of Darwinian Evolution, the egg came first.
There was a creature that could produce hard-shelled eggs (which is the issue that the researchers concentrate on), but what they forget is that it was not QUITE a chicken. It was the immediate evolutionary predecessor to the chicken (but nevertheless included the protean for producing hard-shelled eggs).
The chicken had one of its eggs fertilised, and in the process random mutation introduced a small change. The egg was different to its predecessors... it was the first "modern" chicken egg, and would subsequently produce a creature slightly different to its parents.. the first modern chicken.
OK.. that's simplified. It also misses the point that the entire chicken/egg question is flawed, as there are different breeds of chicken. So which egg and which chicken ?
But nonetheless, if Darwin is correct, then the Egg came first. And continous to do so.
meow purr
PFFFT!!!
You people are over thinking things. Just ask the farmer down the street which came first and he or she can tell you straight. The chickens always come first... Good laying hen can feed a family breakfast.
But just remember, every time you eat those eggs? Chicken sperm was involved somewhere along the way.
As someone who had 2 Hens in his back yard for years, I Can tell you that Chicken sperm isent required.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
Careful now, this thread may be locked soon. This borderlines Religion. LOL
In any case, I hope it doesnt.
I'm just thinkin the neighbour's rooster went stray every Wendsday night. Nothing else, nope...
Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear. The living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said. "Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first. "The same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns. Mr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens. He told PA people were mistaken if they argued that the mutant egg belonged to the "non-chicken" bird parents. "I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," he said. "If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg." Bourns, chairman of trade body Great British Chicken, said he was also firmly in the pro-egg camp. He said: "Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs. "The debate, which may come as a relief to those with argumentative relatives, was organized by Disney to promote the release of the film "Chicken Little" on DVD.
Unmistakably, the egg! Given this discourse, it seems to be the only plausible, accurate, and reasonable conclusion that can be reached. Probably the more troubling question is why this debate seems to interminably continue. The overwhelming and compelling evidence from the historic, archeological, and evolutionary records is clear. Given the sheer weight of the data involved, we as educators should remove this misplaced metaphor from our collective consciousness and vocabulary. Those in positions of leadership and learning must correct those who might wish to continue this mythical paradox. As we enlighten minds and challenge assumptions, we should use the example of this misleading phrase as a rallying cry to correct inaccurate impressions and enhance our instructional precision. Henceforth, we should recognize that those who continue to support, exploit, or utilize this inaccurate and deceptive phrase to be astray of an attempt to unscramble this metaphorical mess. We should egg-spect more from our egg-steemed colleagues to no longer egg-acerbate this problem. The debate on this topic should be concluded. The answer is: The Egg—the whole egg, and nothing but the egg. The conundrum has been resolved, and our educational mission requires our attention in eliminating this fallacious phrase.