2006-06-13 15:46:45 · 26 answers · asked by Stevin F 1 in Health ➔ Diet & Fitness
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."
2006-06-13 15:51:05 · answer #1 · answered by VinTek 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The egg came first. It was laid by a creature that was almost but not quite a chicken. A mutation in the egg made the creature a chicken. Therefore, the egg came first.
2006-06-13 15:50:48 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The reptile egg. Then the chicken and the chicken's egg in no particular order, since it was a gradual evolutionary change from reptile to chicken.
2006-06-13 15:50:32 · answer #3 · answered by auntiegrav 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Dinosaurs were laying eggs long before chickens came around.
2006-06-13 15:50:47 · answer #4 · answered by prefrontal.cortex 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The chicken
2006-06-13 15:50:09 · answer #5 · answered by lilliana 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It takes an egg to hatch to make a chicken!
2006-06-13 15:50:46 · answer #6 · answered by Sassy IQ 125 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Such a question that is asked so much. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs. These dinosaurs laid eggs so the egg was there before it became a chicken. God had nothing to do with it.
2006-06-13 15:53:16 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The pan in which I fry both of them. See, I bought the pan, and then I went out and bought some chickens and some eggs.
2006-06-13 15:49:50 · answer #8 · answered by clueless95129 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sex came first. Or every remember the old Jim Davis cartoon U.S. Acres? There was this half chicken, half egg named Sheldon.
2006-06-13 15:51:08 · answer #9 · answered by timmytude 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The chicken,
read the Bible!
Check out the book of Genesis.
GOD BLESS
2006-06-13 15:50:26 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋