Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[morange]

The chicken did.

Assuming an egg is defined as a chicken's egg:

An egg is the means by which a chicken creates another chicken. God doesn't need to make an egg to make a chicken; he can just make a chicken. The egg would just be a waste. So, the chicken came before the egg.

or

At some time, something very similar to a chicken laid an egg which hatched a chicken. The egg was not a chicken's egg, since it didn't come from a chicken; so the chicken came first.


This is the kind of thing I think about late at night.

[dubkitty]

>The egg was not a chicken's egg, since it didn't come from a chicken; so the chicken came first.

but whether it's a CHICKEN'S EGG isn't part of the premises. thus, if the chicken came from a proto-chicken egg, the egg came first.

[sonidero]

ALIENS SCIENCE AND MAGNETS!!!

Atoms came first...

[morange]

>The egg was not a chicken's egg, since it didn't come from a chicken; so the chicken came first.

but whether it's a CHICKEN'S EGG isn't part of the premises. thus, if the chicken came from a proto-chicken egg, the egg came first.

Good point, although I did list it as an assumption in my argument. But if you include proto chicken eggs, then you have to include proto chickens. Then it becomes, was the first piece of what can be considered life born from an egg? I mean, we're talking some little self-replicating molecule or something (lets say, the chicken molecule). So no. Then the chicken came first.

But wait, if we're talking about little self-replicating molecules, then each molecule functions as both chicken and egg, since one "hatches" from the other. So in that case, they both came first.

[tuffteef]

there both delicious

[bodyisajerk]

dinosaurs.

[Ancient Astronaught]

[chuckjaywalk]

Your mom.

[futuresailors]

there both delicious

[morange]

Your mom.

[Casavettes]

[jfrey]

The answer is the egg.

A not-chicken laid an egg, which while not a "chicken's egg" in the sense that it would be an egg laid by a chicken, was a "chicken's egg" in the sense that it was an egg containing a chicken.

To clarify, in case there is confusion. This is the answer, as biology understands the question. Anything else is just semantics.

*After rereading some posts, props to Dubs. He gets it.

[rustywire]

The chicken, which evolved to reproduce and survive by encasing its young in hard-shelled eggs during their most vulnerable developmental stage.

Before chickens it was other birds, reptiles and dinosaurs. Just like amphibians evolved to be born in soft-shelled eggs, underwater.

In nature the most successful organisms find a niche and adapt to it in order to provide best probability of survival.
When that niche vanishes and the organism is unable to adapt, it means extinction.

Before chickens grew to lay hard-shelled eggs, they were certainly a different species whose numbers were struggling.
But according to the knowledge of humans, they have been mature as a species as long as there have been sapiens around to observe them.

And as we *know* modern birds and reptiles are the last, distant relatives of the dinosaurs.
Also that many more species have come and gone extinct than there are actively alive, since life first became sustainable on this planet.

Nature, bro. Nature.

[tuffteef]

there both delicious

[Jeff-7]

I came in the chicken. Enjoy.