Chicken-Egg Question Cracked: The Egg Came First

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dipdude

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Which came first, the chicken or the egg? According to a scientist, a philosopher and a chicken farmer, it was the egg, British newspapers reported Friday.
The key to the age-old question apparently lies in the fact that since genetic material does not change throughout an animal's life, the first bird that evolved into a chicken must have initially existed as an embryo inside an egg.

Professor John Brookfield, from England's University of Nottingham, concluded that because of this, the living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it turned into.

The specialist in evolutionary genetics was quoted in a number of newspapers as saying: "Therefore the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg. The egg came first."

Brookfield's conclusion was backed up by Professor David Papineau, of King's College, London, and the chairman of the trade body Great British Chicken, Charles Bourns.

Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, argued that the first chicken must have emerged from an egg even though it was laid by a different species of bird, but it was still a chicken egg because it had a chicken in it.

"The conclusion therefore must be that the egg came first and the chicken afterwards," he stated.

Bourns' methodology was not explained in The Times, the Daily Mail and the Independent, who all carried the story.

"Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived," he affirmed.
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This is sensationalism more than news. Looking at it from that perspective, obviously the egg came first; the chicken most probably started out as a mutated offspring of its predecessors. It doesn't require an "expert in the philosophy of science" to understand that!

That, or I'm just generally irritable today lashing out like this at that poor professor :)
 
even if u say that the chiken was a mutated thing .. it has to be LAID ... and u kno wot i mean ..

one cannot xpect an egg to be coming out of rocks/volcanoes/seabed or even rain dwn on earth ...

hw can it be that all the necessary food for the baby to be was also inside wid the correct amount.. ?

true .. i can agree that some species mutated or lets say EVOLVED to be a hen .. bt then u can again not say that an egg came frst..
 
^^The egg came from its predecessors! They must have been the existent breed at that point of time. Then something must have happened and the egg/s laid got mutated. Could have been radioactivity, or anything else. And from the mutated eggs came the first chickens. But this was obvious anyway.
 
tracerbullet said:
^^The egg came from its predecessors! They must have been the existent breed at that point of time. Then something must have happened and the egg/s laid got mutated. Could have been radioactivity, or anything else. And from the mutated eggs came the first chickens. But this was obvious anyway.
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when u cross x with y, u dont call the crossed female a new specie do u? its the offspring that shows different characteristics and is named a different specie coz of this.. its simple logic lol....
 
if a guy could prove that the Chicken came first then i would give him some credit :) then he is great!!!
 
it really is beyond a doubt that the chikens had to be the frst one to come.. else u wd hv heard the white house being laid .. and by that i mean comin into existance... :P

The egg's shell is smthin which is not to come out from a mutation ..fragile enuf to be broken from the pecks of a teenie meenie lil chick ...i mean it simply is a kid's thing .. the contents.. the whole funda of the egg..

no body ever says that mutation/adaptation comes from one shot .. it comes over gradually ..

the bird cud hv easily evolved from a diff specie.. agree upon that .. bt once that happens .. it got to be having diff characteristics from mammals and wen that happens.. u dnt classify it as a diff entity altogether.. it belongs to the same class as the matured thingie which comes out from the egg.. now u wdnt call the mother of the chick an elephant ... wd u ..?
 
Mutation need not be necessary dude. So even humans got mutated when radioactivity stuck monkeys ?? Come on... It is evolution over a period of time.
 
spacescreamer said:
it really is beyond a doubt that the chikens had to be the frst one to come.. else u wd hv heard the white house being laid .. and by that i mean comin into existance... :P

The egg's shell is smthin which is not to come out from a mutation ..fragile enuf to be broken from the pecks of a teenie meenie lil chick ...i mean it simply is a kid's thing .. the contents.. the whole funda of the egg..

no body ever says that mutation/adaptation comes from one shot .. it comes over gradually ..

the bird cud hv easily evolved from a diff specie.. agree upon that .. bt once that happens .. it got to be having diff characteristics from mammals and wen that happens.. u dnt classify it as a diff entity altogether.. it belongs to the same class as the matured thingie which comes out from the egg.. now u wdnt call the mother of the chick an elephant ... wd u ..?
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no u dont call the mother of actual chicken an elephant but call it a mutated specie from which chicken evolved...
 
and y wd ppl think that the egg had mutated...?

i think that the idea of a specie evolving and gettin the characteristics of a bird a lot more feasible idea.

that specie cud vry mch be reproducing like a mammal .. bt after the evolving part done .. the bird like characteristics were there and reproduction system too changed logically ..
 
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