What came frist Chicken or the Egg? A question that as not been answered?

Answer 1

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 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, The Art of Knowing [1]. It appeared again in The Improper Hamptonian [2], was included in abbreviated form in a 2001 Long Island Newsday Q&A column featuring Langan [3], and was compactly summarized in Langan's 2001 Popular Science interview.

A CNN article on May 26, 2006 featured an analysis, according to which the egg came first [2]. 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.

Answer 2

Egg.

Its officially announced out there.
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.

Answer 3

The Chicken had to come first or else the egg would not have hatched. A chick can not survive its early life without the protection and teaching of the Chicken.

Answer 4

I've always said that the chicken came first, I think that a dinosaur or whatever evolved into the first chicken, then that chicken laid loads of eggs, I mean come on, dinosaurs don't lay chicken eggs do they?

Answer 5

I would have to say the EGG because of evolution, yes something had to lay the egg but it could have been something that was just slightly different to a real chicken, so not a chicken.

Answer 6

it's a circular question that deserves both the egg and the chicken came first and second. Because without the chicken the egg cannot be born and hachted and without the egg the chicken cannot come into existence.

Answer 7

The egg as a chicken evolved from a dinosaur which came from an egg.

Answer 8

Dinosaurs where laying Eggs long before they evolved into Chickens

Answer 9

it was the egg cause millions of years a go before what we call a chicken evolved into a chicken it was a egg

Answer 10

by religion chicken came first
by science egg