Home More advice General Knowledge
What was first the egg or the chicken?
It is not unanswerable britz14 , See my response above. However, you may not like or agree with the answers. But that is a different story. smile
Also see the following from a CNN Science debate:
LONDON, England -- It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg.
Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.
Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.
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."
An animal that evolved into egg laying. Much like all animals on earth, there is an egg somewhere along the reproductive line...like which came first the seed or the tree? Trees evolved into seed production for survival. Same as flowers have evolved to attract bees to pollinate...etc, etc, etc.
Or a God did it...some would say "Our father"...but then he'd need a Mother too, but thats another debate altogether.
The egg did. I say that simply because the chicken probably evolved from another species. How did the first species sprout about? One can only guess. My guess is that a bunch of particles collected, and then formed something, which is the root of all species. Or I could take the Christian stand point and say God created a bunch of species and it went from there.
It was the egg.
It would have been laid by something very similar to a chicken but not quite. A sort of genetic mutation if you like. (along the lines of a mutation like an albino animal)
When it hatched, it would have been the first chicken as we now know it.
Well, thats my understanding of this.
It took a lot of researching britz14 and personal curiosity when I saw the question posted.
It is interesting to see some of the posts that have clearly either not read or ignored my previous anser that explains this theory.
:)
for me... chicken comes first than it would be egg... if people sae egg come first, where wld the egg come from??? and if I sae chicken, wer would the chicken come from? probably egg right? OMG!!! I'M LOST... please... anyone...
I too think the same as thecool. I guess reptiles were lying eggs too. A flying species (need not be birds) should have been born from reptile's eggs. and so on...
:) thanks kiasu. How did you find that out? Hey, teachel, couldn't God have made the egg before anyway? Sorry if my constant need for a debate annoys people.
How about this; the chicken is the egg, the egg is the chicken. We are all the egg, and we are all the chicken. Everything is one, and one is everything.
Hi true_hero,
Please see my long posting 5 posts above this one and my second posting from the top.
This should adress your confusion...
:)
misskitty22345:
If there was no egg, there couldn't be a chicken...
haha, I think its impossible to answer this question, no-one knows.
It is actually possible to answer this question from a scientific point of view, please see my response above...smile
An apparently unanswerable question... Though I would like it answered... It is damn annoying me! Britz
If you believe this to be the case, where exactly did the chicken come from???
IT WAS THE BLOODY EGG. *they never said it was a chicken egg, they said EGG"
No prob foshizzlemanizzle, I had to look it up to remind myself...
:)
Oh dear...here we go once again on the never ending carousel...
:(
I know Britz, thanxs Kiasu, at least someone gets me evil stare
chickens before eggs...without chickens, there would be no eggs!
the chicken has to be first.God made it that way.
eggs were around long before chickens
GO FOR IT fizzpop12!
lol
GOD made the chicken first.:)
Oh dear, here we go again...
GOD made the chicken.:)
:) I LOVE debates.
nobody knows...
WHO KNOWS??!X
chicken
