Egg or Chicken?

Question

Everytime someone asks this question I loose the will to live.

However, I have noticed that over the hundreds of times it has been asked, it is always "The Chicken or the Egg", & not the other way around.

As this question has never been answered, do you not think that the only correct answer must be "The Chicken", as it always come FIRST in the question.

Also, if you look long enough at the word CHICKEN it just does not look right ! - or is it just because it's past 1am.

It's 1.30am in the UK.
The point I am getting at is that the question has been asked a thousand times and is unanswerable.
The only factually correct answer is "chicken" as it comes first in the question. ( still don't look right ! ) lol

Answer 1

The Egg came first.

For two reasons.

1. The question is not 'Which came first the chicken or the chicken egg'... Chickens are not the only thing to hatch from eggs so there were plenty of eggs prior to the humble chicken even being a twinkle in evolutions eye.

2. And evolution is another thing... I am sure something resembling a chicken existed prior to the chicken as we know it today. It gradually evolved but the first one to be a chicken as we know it today would have come from an egg that was laid by something that isn't quite a chicken.

That's my view and yes I have given it way too much thought but I too live in England and have many nights like this where I cant sleep. Pondering age old questions helps when you are an insomniac.

I also put the standard listing of Chicken before Egg as something to do with alphabetical order. So just to throw a spanner in the works... In the question and in the dictionary the Chicken comes first. I guess its all perspective.

Hope I have helped. And thanks for the question.

Answer 2

The question is what came first the chicken or the egg? in the question the chicken comes first but in life which is what most people have puzzled about - In Life:-

LONDON, England -- It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Now 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."

The debate, which may come as a relief to those with argumentative relatives, was organized by Disney to promote the release of the film "Chicken Little" on DVD.

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?". Since both the chicken and the egg create the other in certain circumstances (a chicken emerges from an egg; an egg is laid by a chicken) it is ambiguous which originally gave rise to the other. Purely logical attempts to resolve the dilemma result in an infinite regress, since an egg was caused by a chicken, which was caused by an egg, etc. Since every chicken originates from its egg, it seems obvious the egg came first. Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life. The solution may require an examination of syntax and may rely on verification from advances in modern genetic science. When used in reference to difficult problems of causality, the chicken and egg dilemma is often used to appeal to the futility of debate and lay it to rest.

History of the problem

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 chi

Answer 4

It's always seemed obvious to me...no one ever specifies chicken egg, and there were thousands upon thousands of egg-laying organisms existing long before chickens were even a twinkle in natural selection's eye.

Answer 5

Where in this world do you live? It's just past 7 PM here. Naturally the chicken came first because that is how God created things. He made the chicken and like all birds, they laid eggs to reproduce.

Answer 6

OK, I look at it this way......Somewhere down the line animals walked or flew by pairs on to Noah's Ark. Nothing was ever said that a male and female egg were nested on the Ark and hatched. God created Man and Woman and gave them sperm and egg. Not the other way around.

Answer 7

It depends ,
Did you order a Chicken wings or an boiled egg?

Answer 8

loose = lose.

Its the Chicken then the egg... Alphabetical order. Ever been to Ben&Jerry's Ice cream? or is it Jerry&Ben's? it just doesn't sound right. Well you know..it doesn't matter how it sounds. Gee it just sounds simple, but it can get dreadfully confusing... good luck

Answer 9

I was gonna say chicken! darn it you took the word right outta my mouth! LOL

Yeah I understand about the time difference. I had an ahem guy friend once who lives in Yorkshire...blush

Answer 10

Obviously the chicken came first...cuz otherwise who would have hatched the egg???