Chicken or the egg?

[StarLab]

Which do you think came first...


The Chicken or the Egg?

[jimmy]

Chook! :lol:

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by StarLab@Jan 17 2005, 04:07 AM
Which do you think came first.
This is a question of semantics not science.
At some point a proto-chicken laid an egg containing an embryonic chicken. Do you call that egg a proto-chicken egg or a chicken egg? More broadly, there were eggs long before there were chickens.

[damienpaul]

So essentially, the answer is that old rooster chook!!! as jimmy said!!

[bossman20081]

Originally posted by antoniseb+Jan 17 2005, 06:08 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (antoniseb @ Jan 17 2005, 06:08 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-StarLab@Jan 17 2005, 04:07 AM
Which do you think came first.
This is a question of semantics not science.
At some point a proto-chicken laid an egg containing an embryonic chicken. Do you call that egg a proto-chicken egg or a chicken egg? More broadly, there were eggs long before there were chickens. [/b][/quote]
Well, that killed this thread... :D

[StarLab]

Well, here's my answer:

The chicken came first, followed by the rooster! :lol: :P :D

[Betelgeuse]

You know what, StarLab, I can't tell you how glad and pleased I am that you've started this topic! :) I salute you! We could ponder over this for hours and hours and hours! Thanks for your hypothesis, antoniseb and I like your idea about the chicken and then the rooster! The egg would have to be fertilized....but then, where did the rooster come form? Where did the egg come from?

I came across a, (how should I put it) interesting explination on the web:
The evolutionary advance that set the reptiles apart from the amphibians was the development of the amniote or shelled egg which could be laid on land, freeing the reptiles from the necessity of returning to the water as adults for reproduction. The oldest known fossil egg was found in Texas, and dates to the lower Permian period of the earth's history, over 275 million years ago. It is not known from which particular group of Labrynthodont amphibians the reptiles developed; several different families of ancient amphibians seemed to have been developing characteristics at the time similar to those of reptiles.

Quite similar to anton's theory......

[ChromeStar]

At some point a proto-chicken laid an egg containing an embryonic chicken. Do you call that egg a proto-chicken egg or a chicken egg? More broadly, there were eggs long before there were chickens.

True.

Well then, neither could have come first.

[ahrenjb]

He's right about neither coming first. But the chickin' was not somthing that happened over night. The chicken slowly came about through the proscess of evolution. And naturallay the chicken never would have been, but it was created through slective breed ing from a type of grouse or pheasant, probably by some farmer who was smart enough to breed the to fattest ones with eachother.

[ChromeStar]

Probabily that without the selective breeding.

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by ChromeStar@Jan 17 2005, 06:55 PM
Probabily that without the selective breeding.
Agreed, I am pretty confident that chickens pre-date farmers, though I grant that chickens as we know them today were the results of selectively breeding the pre-domestication varieties.

[StarLab]

Well, one could think of it this way:

The egg came first, just as DNA came before cells and stardust came before stars.

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by StarLab@Jan 17 2005, 10:19 PM
stardust came before stars.
Umm. Is this true? Did Baby oil come before babies?

[StarLab]

Did I say it did?

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by StarLab@Jan 18 2005, 12:03 AM
Did I say it did?
Star dust comes from stars. Sorry, the baby oil thing was a distraction.

[StarLab]

Actually Anton, if stardust is characterized by simple hydrogen then yes I'm right...if by stardust we refer to instead oxygen or iron then you are correct.

[rahuldandekar]

The evolution in chcks is happening right now too. So, all chickens are a little different from each other. An egg with chicken DNA may have had an ansestor with chicken DNA too. So, chicken may have evolved gradually. An egg with chicken DNA may not have an ansestor with chicken DNA only if a mutation took place. If that happened, the egg was first.

If Anton's post killed the thread, I can't imagine what this did ...

[ChromeStar]

It would appear that we again have a tie :lol:

[dmccarroll]

I saw a Gery Larson cartoon recently. A chicken and an egg with a face, arms and legs were in a bed. The chicken was smoking a cigarette, looking at the egg and saying "I guess that settles that question".