The Chicken or the Egg...

[J.O.]

Totally non-aviation, since chickens can't fly...

LONDON (AFP) - Which came first, the chicken or the egg? According to a scientist, a philosopher and a chicken farmer, it was the egg, British newspapers reported.

The key to the age-old question apparently lies in the fact that since genetic material does not change throughout an animal's life, the first bird that evolved into a chicken must have initially existed as an embryo inside an egg.

Professor John Brookfield, from England's University of Nottingham, concluded that because of this, the living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it turned into.

The specialist in evolutionary genetics was quoted in a number of newspapers as saying: "Therefore the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg. The egg came first."

Brookfield's conclusion was backed up by Professor David Papineau, of King's College, London, and the chairman of the trade body Great British Chicken, Charles Bourns.

Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, argued that the first chicken must have emerged from an egg even though it was laid by a different species of bird, but it was still a chicken egg because it had a chicken in it.

"The conclusion therefore must be that the egg came first and the chicken afterwards," he stated.

Bourns' methodology was not explained in The Times, the Daily Mail and the Independent, who all carried the story.

"Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived," he affirmed.

[Moon The Loon]

Tend to agree.

So long as the egg was laid by a giraffe.

[Mitch Cronin]

Well I'm sure glad we got that cleared up.

...but... ...ummm... ...just one little thing though... If there was nobody around to name the critter we now call a chicken, which came out of some other critter's egg ... then didn't the chicken come first, when it was given the name? .... ....

[QFE]

A chicken is an actuality whereas an egg is only a probability. Therefore the chicken must be first.

[Guest rattler]

But of course if you accept that

the first bird that evolved into a chicken must have initially existed as an embryo inside an egg thus the egg was first, 

then where did the egg come from???

[Mitch Cronin]

Could have been from a donkey, it doesn't matter... they're saying since the dna inside the egg was that of a chicken, it was therefore a "chicken egg", no matter what it was that laid it.

I say there was no such thing as a "chicken egg" until the chicken was named.

[handyman]

But of course if you accept that then where did the egg come from???

God...where else?

[Mitch Cronin]

So... now you're tellin' us god laid an egg?

[how do you spell laid in that context? ]

[handyman]

So... now you're tellin' us god layed an egg?

Yup, I guess I am!

[deicer]

Whoever it was that was first, should turn out the lights

[Moon The Loon]

Would it be fair to say that if the chicken came first, it made for a happy rooster?

Uh oh, here come de Man....