i have had a challenge to answer this correctly i have been given a week apparently its hard but easy!! Can anyone help in simple english with the answer XX
2006-07-04 08:30:50 · 35 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
The egg.
A chicken grew inside an egg laid by something chicken-like. Evolution is a very gradual process, how you define when a chicken actually became a chicken rather than something chicken-like is a much harder question.
2006-07-04 08:33:26 · answer #1 · answered by anonymous_dave 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It can only be the egg. In a chicken its cells divide and replace themselves constantly throughout its life. Any mutations would be insignificant because the chicken is made up of many cells. So a chicken in its life is always a chicken- it cannot evolve into anything else. The egg, once fertilised, begins to grow into a chicken. The new embryo has cells that are totipotent- they can develop into any type of cell. Mutations that occur during cell division can have a more significant impact and alter the organism- although still only in a small way. Changes to the organism can only occur in the egg stage.
2006-07-04 08:48:02 · answer #2 · answered by montenapoleone 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The egg:
A living creature cannot evolve (mutations only happen in the embryo before birth). So a non-chicken could not spontaneously turn into a chicken. A non-chicken would have laid an egg which was mutated during reproduction, and when that egg hatched it was a chicken! So the egg was really first.
2006-07-04 08:34:28 · answer #3 · answered by ontario ashley 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The egg came first, because insects, fish and reptiles all laid eggs of some sort *way* before there ever were birds or their ancestors, theropod dinosaurs.
It's like asking which came "first", the seed or the tree. Every green plant living on land came from a seed, long before there were ever trees.
Egg is a generic term, much like seed or embryo. It's been around. Chicken is a specific term, a genus and species at least.
2006-07-04 08:44:56 · answer #4 · answered by Bradley P 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's the egg, if you think of it in terms of evolution, because the chicken had to of hatched, it's not like a critter suddenly appeared and it was the chicken. It hatched out of an egg which was laid by something that prolly didn't look like a chicken, because prehistoric animals laid eggs, egg came first. Well that's what I think anyway.
2006-07-04 08:37:51 · answer #5 · answered by inannaknapp 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The egg came first. The chicken evolved from other birds and had to come out of an egg, it just wasn't a chicken egg. Chickens just didn't appear out of thin air!
2006-07-04 08:36:44 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The single cell organism came first then evolved over a LONG time into many, many, many animals of which one is a chicken that we know today. Then a chicken laid an egg.
2006-07-04 08:40:53 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can't have eggs without chickens to make them, so the chicken must have evolved from the dinosaurs and ended up like that. Therefore, the chicken came first.
2006-07-04 08:36:36 · answer #8 · answered by hawaiian_shorts91 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
neither.
there was no clear definition between what was a chicken and what wasnt a chicken.
over the course of millions of years the chickens ancestors became more and more chicken like. except it wasnt smooth progression. there would have been millions of years when there was no evolution. then there couuld have been one minor genetic change. then nothing for another million years.gradual changes over millions of year lead to the current chicken.
so at what point do you define chicken? 95% chicken DNA? 97% chicken DNA?
before you answer that, bear in mind that a human has 75% of its DNA in common with a primate.
2006-07-05 08:12:35 · answer #9 · answered by top_cat_1972 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I say the egg, because it could be a mutation from another animal's egg, and therefore produce the chicken instead of whatever animal the egg came from. Hope that helps you.
2006-07-04 08:51:36 · answer #10 · answered by rumpleteazer04 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋