Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?

Chickens hatch from eggs, but eggs are laid by chickens, making it
difficult to say which originally gave rise to the other. To ancient
philosophers, the question about the first chicken or egg also evoked
the questions of how life and the universe in general began.

Like I said above the chicken emerges from the egg, and the egg is laid
by the chicken, so it appears to be an ambiguous and circular question
with no possible solution. However there might just be an answer...

hat do you think come first, the chicken or the egg?

Give us a full explanation on what come first, remember it's a debate; give us your best shot!

Without chicken, egg would die from the cold, making it impossible for the egg to come first.

The egg does not need a chicken to keep it warm, reptiles lay eggs, the platypus lays eggs, but the chicken needs the egg to spawn from.

the egg came first.

I'll just leave this here:
http://topnews.co.uk/28958-chicken-came-egg-british-scientists

that just means the chicken came before the chicken egg, i was thinking in a more general sense.

Well obviously it means the Chicken was there before the Egg...

The chicken came first.. It evolved from a pterodactyl

but did not pterodactyls lay eggs as well?

This is really just a question of mostly your religious beliefs.

I believe in Creation so I believe the chicken came first.

for the sake of this debate let's keep it secular. it's not much of a debate if everything can be answered by "<insert deity> did it".

This seemed more like an opinion thread to me, I understand most debates are secular so after this I'm staying out.

nah, it's not that. none of us have the qualifications to make any definitive statements about the subject, so this is purely a mental workout. that's why i debate, not to convince others of my point of view, but to come across new ways of thinking of things.

this is why the generic religious answer doesn't really help much. it's a "this is the way it is" statement without room for negotiation or critical analysis. analyzing religious texts? sure, i'd be up for that as long as everyone realizes that their opinion is just as valid as everyone else's until proven otherwise.

anyways, back on topic:
i think some definitions are needed, like what is an "egg" in relation to the chicken. is it the object a chicken is born from? or is it the object that a chicken creates to reproduce?
the same with "chicken". is it the creature that comes out of a chicken egg? or is it the creature that produces chicken eggs?

Xen aliens did it! Now back to being serious for a bit...

Ask someone to define a chicken and an egg and most people would say this:
Chicken; damn tasty bird that lays eggs.
Egg; hard shelled cover for an unborn chick/tasty snack.
So when you look at it like this none came first. However when we down evolution road and look at the pre-chicken I'm pretty sure that it used to give birth to fully living chicks instead of laying eggs. This however brings a new problem; Egg cells are still eggs and needed for traditional reproduction so the pre-chicken still has eggs!

Now things get complicated, how do you reproduce without sharing genetic material? By using your own (cloning). Problem is that DNA and RNA can only be splitted so many times before breaking (we call this aging). Not only that but clones can hardly adapt to the world around them. Seeing how the habitat and world changes around the clock this would mean a certain doom to the chicken giving it a reason for traditional reproduction. Still, this would mean a pre-chicken came before the egg.

Anyway, it is hard to say what came first when you look at it like this. We only know so much about this world because of those damned Midde Ages where science came to a near full stop due to religions calling it blasphemy. However what we do know today is that during a certain era there was a lack of a protein needed to create the hard shelled egg.

ok, i feel bad now, i have to move onto hard science instead of abstract logic.

Sgt Pepper wrote:
So when you look at it like this none came first. However when we down evolution road and look at the pre-chicken I'm pretty sure that it used to give birth to fully living chicks instead of laying eggs. This however brings a new problem; Egg cells are still eggs and needed for traditional reproduction so the pre-chicken still has eggs!

but a "pre-chicken" is not a chicken. and if i am not mistaken, the fossil record shows that there were eggs long before anything that looked like a chicken. even if the eggs did not contain chickens, they were still eggs.

Now things get complicated, how do you reproduce without sharing genetic material? By using your own (cloning).

i think you mean budding

Problem is that DNA and RNA can only be splitted so many times before breaking (we call this aging). Not only that but clones can hardly adapt to the world around them. Seeing how the habitat and world changes around the clock this would mean a certain doom to the chicken giving it a reason for traditional reproduction. Still, this would mean a pre-chicken came before the egg.

it seems to me you have not taken a biology class recently, you might want to look up mitosis again.

Anyway, it is hard to say what came first when you look at it like this. We only know so much about this world because of those damned Midde Ages where science came to a near full stop due to religions calling it blasphemy. However what we do know today is that during a certain era there was a lack of a protein needed to create the hard shelled egg.

again, fossil record

Yeah sorry, it has been over a year since my last Biology class which is a shame, I really liked Biology.

Eggs just don't spawn out of the blue, something has to lay it.

I know what came first....

Day of Defeat: Source!

Jonesie wrote:I know what came first....

Day of Defeat: Source!

Day of Defeat 1.0 came out first, then 1.1, 1.2, and finally 1.3. Source came out a bit after that, and finally Day of Defeat: Orange Box (it's still called Source, but you get it) went official.

You are sorely incorrect, Jonesie >:P

I know, Ninji. I did that on purpose. I just stopped playing DOD:S

I wonder what a chicken looked like before it became the way it is today and why it evolved into laying eggs while it did not before.

most likely this:


and i'm pretty sure the ancestors of the chicken were laying eggs long before the chicken existed.

Is that a Velocyraptor?

similar, yes.

Thank god it wasn't a Tyrannosaurus Rex!

Eraserhead wrote:I wonder what a chicken looked like before it became the way it is today and why it evolved into laying eggs while it did not before.

This quote reminded me of all the times I sat around getting intoxicated with my friends. We always asked each other questions like this.