2007-02-15 02:28:21 · 12 answers · asked by Catalyst 3 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Jokes & Riddles
This question appears regularly in the question file, so let's take a shot at it.
In nature, living things evolve through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote.
Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken.
Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.
2007-02-15 03:57:26 · answer #1 · answered by THE UNKNOWN 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Evolutionist would say the egg and creationist would say the chicken, but if you think about it a hen could not have sex unless there was a rooster and without the egg being fertilized it would be sterile. So it is more like which came first the egg or the hen and the rooster. But there again without the hen laying on the egg to keep it warm the egg would die. Now evolutionists believe that one celled organisms were created by a lighting bolt hitting a primordial pool of nutrients creating life in the form of simple one celled organisms, these organisms grew and evolved and then one day they split into sexes instead of just splitting like most one celled organisms do to procreate. so in that sense the egg came first. It has been a debate for a long time and nobody really knows the answer.
2007-02-15 02:50:24 · answer #2 · answered by sphericaluniverse 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This question has been asked several times today. I wonder why!
Folks are still responding to it right here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AokkfWy101w.OcGRG3PzQ1vsy6IX?qid=20070215044153AAxTkIO&show=7#profile-info-rShFT1Lqaa
CHICK if you must choose.
I will also accept that since one is a complicated form of replication and the other is the complete organism, they are the same. Look at it in terms of a single celled organism that replicates through cellular division. Do we ask which came first the cell on the left or the cell on the right?? No. They divided into two. That is the concept of replication and if you extend it through billions of years you can understand that the chicken reproduces by laying the egg (fertilized) and that in essence it is just a complicated version of the single-celled division.
However, if that is not convincing enough--Simply put, whatever laid the first egg was a chicken. The egg (being a chicken) had to be laid by a chicken in order to be a chicken egg. Combine this information with the information on reproduction and evolution and you see that there is no paradox.
Scientists should stop using this as a paradox. In the future, people will laugh at our naivity. If one understands evolution there is no paradox. The question is just as silly as someone asking, "which came first the engine or the wheel? ah...it's a paradox--the car couldn't move without the wheel or the engine...". You see what I mean?
2007-02-15 02:50:40 · answer #3 · answered by ari-pup 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Depends.
If you believe in creationism, then God made all the world and all the animals- not eggs to grow into animals.
However, if you believe in evolution, then there was an egg of whatever the hen evolved from before there was actually the hen itself.
2007-02-15 02:46:38 · answer #4 · answered by imjustasteph 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
an egg because if the hen came first it wouldnt be able to hatch an egg without the rooster but an egg will hatch a rooster and another aegg will hatch a hen
2007-02-15 02:37:27 · answer #5 · answered by turley345 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
An egg would not have survived without a hen to sit on it.
2007-02-15 02:47:53 · answer #6 · answered by comet girl...DUCK! 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
um guessing a egg cause a hen can hatch hens
2007-02-15 02:32:41 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is only one place from which a chicken egg comes! LOL.
Have a great day!
2007-02-18 10:55:45 · answer #8 · answered by jfmm 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the hen.. god didnt lay eggs
2007-02-15 02:55:00 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A HEN
2007-02-15 02:32:45 · answer #10 · answered by anna 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋