Ming the Mechanic:
Chicken and egg problem solved
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Chicken and egg problem solved2006-05-30 23:42
11 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

CNN:
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.
I'm so glad we got that sorted out. Did they get paid for figuring this out? So, where did that first egg come from? It is a non-sensical and misleading question, as the chicken and the egg are part of the same system. Even without that, their logic is flawed. It is a lot more likely that some animal by some evolutionary accident will depose some of its genetic material somewhere in such a way that it can grow into a new animal than it is that a fully programmed egg somehow happened. Eggs don't do very much on their own. Anyway, I'm already confusing myself, so I should probably have stayed with the thought that it isn't a valid question.


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11 comments

31 May 2006 @ 00:54 by swanny : The Rooster
Actually I've always maintained that the rooster
was first seeing how he's up earliest and well
the early bird... so but then what came first the
worm or the early bird? My my ask one question and boom
20 more appear.  

1 Jun 2006 @ 17:40 by Ed Dawson @66.245.207.170 : Egg first
The egg came first. If you follow back the evolution of the chicken, it was an egg laying bird BEFORE it became a chicken, therefore the first chicken came from an egg. Ergo the egg is first.

;-P
Ed  

1 Jun 2006 @ 17:45 by swanny : Good work Ed
One down 235 billion to go...

swanny  

4 Jun 2006 @ 10:33 by Nightcrawler @144.132.30.75 : Reptiles?!?
seriously people r we that dumb, of course it was the egg! just ask yourself what came first the chicken or the reptile? and another question what do reptiles lay? simple isnt it?  

7 Jun 2006 @ 17:37 by ming : Eggs
Now, if you phrase it like this: "What came first, the egg, or an animal that laid the egg?", I think it is quite obvious. There's no egg unless somebody laid it. But the animals in question might well have come about in other ways than by coming out of hard-shelled eggs.  

8 Jun 2006 @ 23:17 by johan @203.206.46.126 : what was satan befor he became egg
funny how science always seems to get things the oppisite to the word
it is most clearly stated in gen 3 ,that god made his angle/a\
angals have wings? in to a beast type thing that crawls
lok at a deeper coincidence its egsactly oppisite to the real ./scientific word
both clearly cant be right ,but importantly there was /is now a scientific proof ,but proof of what ,its only words but think
the sign was there thousands of years ago /science only latly saw
what came first the vision or the fact.  

30 Apr 2007 @ 08:04 by Edson Rachelpiy @206.49.89.226 : Wow
I would say that there is no correct answer to this. It really depends on how you believe. If you believe strongly in religion, then you are most likey to believe that the chicken being put onto earth first during the creation among the other animals, not mentioning Adam and Eve. And if you believe in science, then it is obvious that you are going to argue that the egg comes first because you can prove it to us. Therefore, I would say that the answer really depends on your own belief.  

1 May 2007 @ 10:53 by Matt @71.71.15.19 : Chicken or the Egg?
I have a lot of respect for you, but in answer to this age old question my answer is the chicken came first. Why? Well, first off I think we need to narrow the question. Which came first the chicken or the chicken's egg. Then it becomes answerable and we can get on to other things. If you believe in evolution then at some point in history an animal, some ancestor of the chicken, lets call it a near-chicken layed a near-chicken's egg. In that near-chicken's egg was a mutated/evolved animal that could be called a chicken. After that we have chicken's eggs. So that would be the evolutional answer. In creationism the chicken was created and layed chicken's eggs. So in both cases the chicken's eggs came after the chicken.

Just my take on it.  

12 Mar 2008 @ 10:56 by pamela @203.84.170.34 : ?
katanga naman, nd b halata kpag ngbasa k ng children's buk,ang unang mkkita ngccmula ung cycle s itlog..bobo b?  

19 Jan 2012 @ 17:05 by Nautilus @99.56.221.38 : Chicken or egg? CHICKEN!
Your article, dated 12 March 2008, is superceded by the work of British scientists at Sheffield and Warwick Universities. Their paper on the subject was presented on June 10, 2010. The scientists found that protein existing only in a chicken's ovaries, is necessary for the formation of an egg. Their conclusion is that the chicken came first.  

1 May 2016 @ 10:26 by Kailin @188.143.232.32 : wvdqSDMAathcpu
At last! Someone with real exriptese gives us the answer. Thanks!  

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