Chicken or Egg- Which Came First?

**Maria92** · 07-22-2010 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Xei

We can equate chickens and chicken ancestors in a discussion about the difference between chickens and their ancestors? The study says that chickens came first because modern chickens have a protein specific to eggs. The argument is completely wrong because it discards the very likely possibility that pre-chickens also had this protein.

No, there wasn't a first chicken. The whole point of evolution is that it is gradual. There have been plenty of things that you can look at and call a chicken, but with all of those, its parents would have looked just as much like a chicken. If there were a first chicken by strict definition, as I explained, it wouldn't have had anything to mate with. So it's a contradiction. And you can't just handwave and say 'well the chicken emerged around about here' because the whole point of the question is that it refers to a single event.

Now I'm finally understanding you. But, if pre-chickens had the protein, then they weren't really chickens, were they? At that point, you have a steady evolution of almost-chickens with normal egg shells. Which brings us right back to square one: which actually came first? If you assume that the chicken ancestors that originally developed the egg protein were dissimilar enough from modern chickens to produce viable offspring, and that chickens as we know them today have always had the exact same eggs, then by the principle of evolution the egg came first.

**Xei** · 07-23-2010 12:10 AM

But, if pre-chickens had the protein, then they weren't really chickens, were they?

I'm not implying they were... I used the term pre-chicken to convey the fact that they weren't.

At that point, you have a steady evolution of almost-chickens with normal egg shells. Which brings us right back to square one: which actually came first? If you assume that the chicken ancestors that originally developed the egg protein were dissimilar enough from modern chickens to produce viable offspring, and that chickens as we know them today have always had the exact same eggs, then by the principle of evolution the egg came first.

As I said in my initial post, this is largely about how you define things. If you're talking about any egg, then patently the egg came first. Forget the 'pre-chicken', there were other birds, and reptiles even.

The only other interesting concept of egg which people might have is a chicken egg, i.e. an egg with a chicken in.

**Maria92** · 07-23-2010 05:01 AM

Originally Posted by Xei

I'm not implying they were... I used the term pre-chicken to convey the fact that they weren't.

And I was using it to convey that it seems like quite the large slip up to say non-chickens are chickens in a scientific study.

As I said in my initial post, this is largely about how you define things. If you're talking about any egg, then patently the egg came first. Forget the 'pre-chicken', there were other birds, and reptiles even.

Well, yeah.

The only other interesting concept of egg which people might have is a chicken egg, i.e. an egg with a chicken in.

And that, I think, is the question in this thread. "Chicken" egg is implied.