what was created first, an egg or a chicken?

Question

think answer need something to support it, not just straight egg or chicken

Answer 1

A chicken-like creature evolved into a chicken. So, it depends on when an egg or a chicken-like creature has all the characteristics of a chicken egg or chicken. Since the precise moment in time when this mutation occurred is unknown, the answer is unknown.

Answer 2

Some people say that the egg came first since the chicken evolved from something else, which had already had eggs, but that simply opens the next question - in that species, which came first? Tracing it right back, which would have originated first? I think that the chicken would plausibly have come first, since, following the theory of evolution, we started evolution as bacterium that reproduced without eggs, but rather by a process of cell division; as they evolved, so they evolved into species with the capacity to produce eggs; if there is an egg, it must have been laid by something!

Answer 3

The chicken or the egg is a reference to the causality dilemma which arises from the expression "which came first, the chicken or the egg?". When used in reference to difficult problems, a chicken and egg problem is similar to a Catch 22 situation where something cannot happen until a second thing does, and the second thing cannot happen until the first does. For example, a person might have trouble finding a job without work experience, but to get work experience he/she must have a job.

The earliest reference to the dilemma is found in Plutarch's Moralia, in the books titled "Table Talk," in a series of arguments based on questions posed in a symposium. Under the section entitled, "Whether the hen or the egg came first," the discussion is introduced in such a way as to suggest that the origin of the dilemma was even older:

"...the problem about the egg and the hen, which of them came first, was dragged into our talk, a difficult problem which gives investigators much trouble. And Sulla my comrade said that with a small problem, as with a tool, we were rocking loose a great and heavy one, that of the creation of the world..."
Various answers have been formulated in response to the question, many of them humorous.

As suggested by the alternative definitions and solutions given below, the chicken-or-egg dilemma has multiple semantic variants and can thus be viewed as an exercise in semantics. Regarding at least two of these variants, the field of biology contains decisive contextual information. Although the problem has been around in one form or another for millennia, making it difficult or impossible to know who first "solved" it, the biological information needed to resolve all of the obvious semantic variants has only been available for decades.

A modern analysis covering all of the major variants was authored by Christopher Langan, published in 2001 on the Mega Foundation website [1], and subsequently included in his book of essays [2]. It appeared again in The Improper Hamptonian, was included in abbreviated form in a 2001 Long Island Newsday Q&A column featuring Langan, and was compactly summarized in Langan's 2001 Popular Science interview. Although others may previously have reached similar conclusions, this seems to have been the first time that a definitive analysis appeared in the popular media.

This analysis was recently corroborated in a May 26, 2006 CNN article, according to which the egg came first [3]. The key criteria on which CNN bases its answer, involving relatively recent findings from reproductive and evolutionary biology, are identical to several of those cited in the prior analysis.

Contents [show]
1 Assuming a chicken egg
2 Biological Answers
3 A question of whether chickens exist
4 A question of syntax
5 Reframing the question
6 See also
7 External links



[edit]
Assuming a chicken egg
In this case, the egg is assumed to be a chicken's egg. This is an obvious assumption since the question itself implies a link between the two.

If one assumes the egg to be a chicken egg then one must define what a chicken egg is:

If: A chicken egg will hatch a chicken
Then a bypass is allowed: An animal that was not a chicken laid the chicken egg which contained the first chicken. In this case the egg came first.

If: A chicken egg is the egg that a chicken lays
Then a bypass is allowed: A chicken (that hatched from a non-chicken egg) laid an egg (a chicken egg). In this case the chicken came first.

If: A chicken egg will hatch a chicken and A chicken egg is the egg that a chicken lays
Then there may be an error of definition. If the definition of "chicken" used does not refer to "chicken eggs", then the chicken must come first, because without chickens there cannot be any chicken eggs.

[edit]
Biological Answers
In this case, the egg is not assumed to be a chicken egg. In effect this changes the question to: "Which came first, a chicken or any egg".

From a cellular biology point of view this question can be answered quite easily. The egg came first because any female sex cell is called an egg.

If the egg is defined structurally as the hard shelled thing, and the chicken a feather covered animal, the answer is still simple. Evolutionary scientists believe the first hard shell egg was the amniotic egg laid around 300 million years ago, and was laid by the animal who was the link between amphibians and reptiles. One of the first dinosaurs that we know had feathers was the Archaeopteryx, and came much later. Modern birds would not arise until 150 million years ago, descending from theropod dinosaurs.

In this case, the first chicken must have been the mutated offspring of a proto-chicken that laid the egg containing the first true chicken. In any case, this creature hatched from a recognizable egg. After all, the question is purposefully ambiguous -- it is not, "Which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?"

The crux of the matter is how to biologically define 'a chicken'. What level of genetic similarity or structural similarity determine whether an organism is a chicken? One can only define what was the first chicken after the fact, thus any definition of the first chicken becomes arbitrary. The question 'which came first?' ignores the complicated reality of speciation.

According to the principles of speciation, neither the chicken nor the egg came first, because speciation does not occur in simple, obvious units. In fact, evolution is about a slow transition in an overall population. What qualifies as “chicken” (ignoring the many diverse modern types of chicken) involves a wide range of genetic traits (alleles) that are not encompassed in a single individual and continue to be modified from generation to generation.

The transition from non-chicken to chicken is a gray area in which several generations are involved, and therefore which includes many many chicken-and-egg events, with no one step representing the whole. Since the result of the process is an incomplete transition into various new characteristics rather than one single blueprint, a new species, "chicken", is only identified in hindsight when the species can be obviously identified as different from its ancestral stock.

[edit]
A question of whether chickens exist
It has been suggested that the definition of "chicken egg" could be "an egg that was laid by a chicken", creating a perpetual causal loop. An equally valid logical resolution to the problem is to postulate that there are, in fact, no chickens.

[edit]
A question of syntax
One can consider the question inside the framework of experience, making the question concrete instead of abstract: "The chicken or the egg - which came first?" "The chicken" came first - in the sentence of the question. If the question is phrased differently, the answer is different.

[edit]
Reframing the question
It could be said that the question simply requires one to know the context. Most people thinking of the question automatically think of the timeline and it is in this manner that both the previous evolutionary theory and religious teachings contexts arise. Other potential contexts are:

Having looked through a dictionary from front to back, which came first? - the chicken or the egg?
When you walked through the supermarket, which came first? - the chicken or the egg?
When reading the menu, which came first? - the chicken or the egg?

Answer 4

God created the earth, universe, and all species there-in. Therefore, the Chicken was created just like all the other animals, and of course so was their reproductive abilities. In other words, Man-kind was created, the male and female would have been created as a "whole" creature, thus having the correct reproductive organs, as well as the eggs and sperm.

Many will argue about God's existence, but during my 30 years of study on so-called evolution vs Creation, and my personal experience with "spirit of God", I can very clearly prove that the world and all things there-in were indeed "created". I released my book on this study to various schools here in the state of Tennessee, and my results could not be debated in the least.

Yes, God does exist, he created all things, great and small, and all things came before the "eggs, cocoons, babies, etc.", they came "after" the creature itself.

Answer 5

The egg came first, using the theory of evolution an animal that had a close genetic make up of the chicken laid the egg which the chicken that we know today hatch out of using this theory it is possible that chicken will continue to evolve in order to survive

Answer 6

Since the chicken evolved from an earlier life form, the egg came first.

Answer 7

God created the chicken and then the chicken created the egg and so on.

Answer 8

Hunger first....A "throwing stick" The "taste like chicken" retort then a Pelican dressed like a chicken balancing an egg on its Frisbee.

Answer 9

an egg

Answer 10

there was just an article about this. scientists determined the egg came first.