the chicken or the egg


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just a funny news I found :D

Chicken and egg debate unscrambled

Egg came first, 'eggsperts' agree

Friday, May 26, 2006 Posted: 1133 GMT (1933 HKT)

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.

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I thought the expression came from the debate of science vs. religion, since they both have their obvious but different answers for it?

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I thought the expression came from the debate of science vs. religion, since they both have their obvious but different answers for it?

Exactly. It's has never been a real riddle but merely a turn of phrase for a conundrum. Any person with half a brain who has ever taken a high school Biology class could have told you what this "brilliant" professor "discovered"... :rolleyes:

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It was chicken and rooster that came first they made the egg.

... But like was said, it had to evolve from something and you can't evolve during a single lifetime... Therefore the egg came first (I have no idea I've been telling people this exact same thing).

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:laugh: Rubbish. How could an egg 'develope' on it's own, and what hatched it ? Was is laying out in the sun ? Where is there anything like an egg popping up from, bacteria ? ... nothing ? What stopped eggs from developing independent from a bird ?

The chickens developed first.

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Damn, this bit of news is pretty retarded as well.

Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer.

Good to know the three stooges came up with something.

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.

Okay, we've got scientists taking Disney seriously? Maybe they should set up a debate over more political issues; we'd probably get more done with the government then.

Egg came first, 'eggsperts' agree

What about the chicksperts? :p

Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear.

Because the UK should be totally concerned with this 'issue'. :rolleyes:

..and in the end, the debate STILL continues bringing us back to square one. Thanks for playing. ;)

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Ok so if the egg came first howd the chicken "goo" get into it.

Easy. The ricken and chooster mated and made chickens and roosters (which apparently lost their fangs in the mutation process). ;)

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Easy. The ricken and chooster mated and made chickens and roosters (which apparently lost their fangs in the mutation process). ;)

Hey that would explain the bad tasting chooster salad I had tonite.

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Any halfwit with the most basic secondary/highschol science education will be able to tell you it's the egg.

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Any halfwit with the most basic secondary/highschol science education will be able to tell you it's the egg.

I can vouch for that, because you have eggs for breakfast and chicken for lunch or dinner, you halfwits!

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it's like when you cross two dog breads to get a desired dog, the firtilized egg comes first which is the new bread (chicken)

an egg is a giant unfertilized haploid stem cell

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The egg answer is more logical. Its more possible (for my understanding) that some bacteria evolved into a "cigoto" (don't know how to say it in english) (and with problems, the first egg [that doesn't have to be an egg, it could be a living organism growing very very slowly into a chicken]) than a bacteria evolving in a complete chicken without problems in the first try.

The egg answer makes more sense than the chicken answer.

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  • 1 month later...

:laugh: Rubbish. How could an egg 'develope' on it's own, and what hatched it ? Was is laying out in the sun ? Where is there anything like an egg popping up from, bacteria ? ... nothing ? What stopped eggs from developing independent from a bird ?

The chickens developed first.

sigh, its quite simple really. the egg didnt develop on its own. a bird which is very similar to a chicken layed an egg which had genetic material which is similar enough to a chicken for it to be classified as such. so the egg came first because that is the first one to have the genes of a chicken

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