blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 So what came first? The chicken or the egg? How did chickens evolve and when did eggs come into the picture? (As a side note, to continue my fascination with food, I can't help but wonder how people discovered that eggs were good to eat.) And no, I'm not trolling. I wish I was Pretty sad to get to the ripe old age of 26 and have no understanding of basic scientific principles! Anyway, time for a nap, will check in later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Chicken. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38238685/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/which-came-first-chicken-or-egg/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrotherJosh Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1308772/Evolution-action-Scientists-discover-lizards-verge-leap-egg-laying-live-births.html It's gradual. It's always gradual. A single, random lizard didn't one day just pop out an egg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Here is the motherload of egg info. http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodeggs.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Eggs are at least 195 million years old. http://www.maropeng.co.za/index.php/news/entry/worlds_oldest_dinosaur_eggs_reveal_more_about_reproductive_behaviour/ Show me chicken remains that are 196 million years old and the chicken wins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Dinosaurs came first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Eggs are at least 195 million years old. http://www.maropeng....tive_behaviour/ Show me chicken remains that are 196 million years old and the chicken wins. But those aren't chicken eggs. Here is an interesting article. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-448283/Proof-fearsome-T-Rex-evolved-chicken.html But I still say Chicken because it's not old enough of a species, it needed to evolve from something over time. When it became the chicken we know today (DNA wise) it then laid an egg for the first time. http://www.uniprot.org/taxonomy/9031 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Ok, slightly OT but had to share. 34,000-year-old bacteria still alive http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1347528/The-34-000-year-old-bacteria-thats-alive.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Darwin and yellow chicken legs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3334471/Darwin-was-wrong-about-chicken-evolution.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I'd like to try and ante in here. Some things here I feel rather certain about and other things are not so certain. I am trying to explain here nearly as much as I am trying to explore. And I think what this post will give rise to depends in large part on the attitude of the reader. If the reader takes the attitude that this post must be either correct or mistaken, then I believe not much will happen. However if the reader adopts the attitude that this post requires refinement and further exploration then it might go somewhere. First, I'd like to note that evolution and physiology are different. They are not unrelated, but they are also not equivalent. And I suggest here that in order to bring forth better understanding of the chicken and egg paradox we would do well to look at physiology. Next, we need to see the entailments associated with this paradox. We do that by asking, "why?" When we ask this question we need to bear in mind that there will not be only one correct answer, but rather multiple correct answers. Okay so... Why do eggs exist? The first answer to my mind is... because chickens lay them. But, as any farmer will tell us, they also exist because the chickens were fed. I think there are other answer to this question, but we will leave them to the side and express what we have just asserted as to the causes of eggs in a different language. chickens: food ---> eggs Alright... Why do chickens exist? The first answer to my mind here is... because they developed from eggs. This seems to me like two answers rolled into one, since we may differentiate between eggs and the process of their development and growth. We can see this more clearly in a different language. development: eggs ---> chickens So we have here a coarse picture of the chickens' and eggs' physiology. We will write it once more so that we may see them together. chickens: food --> eggs development: eggs --> chickens We can immediately see the paradox here. It exists as a loop of natural entailment. It expresses an irreducible wholeness. I believe these loops are the essence of organism. No loop, no organism. And so when we turn our attention to evolution we should not ask... which came first? Rather we should ask... why did this loop evolve as it did? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 http://www.dailymail...ive-births.html It's gradual. It's always gradual. A single, random lizard didn't one day just pop out an egg. Aw, I like skinks. They're so cute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 Here is the motherload of egg info. http://www.foodtimel...g/foodeggs.html Does this mean that eggs are meat, too? Do they have the same properties as meat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 Eggs are at least 195 million years old. http://www.maropeng....tive_behaviour/ Show me chicken remains that are 196 million years old and the chicken wins. Dinosaurs came first. But how did the dinosaurs reproduce before they have a reproductive system and the ability to lay eggs? They can't have just been made like that- that's a very creationistic view. Evolution is a step-by-step process, right? So wouldn't that mean that there was a time before they laid eggs that they reproduced some other way? In which case, as a descendant of the dinosaur, wouldn't that then mean the chicken (dinosaur) came before the egg? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 But I still say Chicken because it's not old enough of a species, it needed to evolve from something over time. When it became the chicken we know today (DNA wise) it then laid an egg for the first time. http://www.uniprot.org/taxonomy/9031 But by then, wouldn't it have had the ability to produce eggs? My head's beginning to hurt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 Ok, slightly OT but had to share. 34,000-year-old bacteria still alive http://www.dailymail...hats-alive.html That's a bit creepy- I wonder if this bacteria is harmful to us at all? I know not all bacteria is bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 I'd like to try and ante in here. Some things here I feel rather certain about and other things are not so certain. I am trying to explain here nearly as much as I am trying to explore. And I think what this post will give rise to depends in large part on the attitude of the reader. If the reader takes the attitude that this post must be either correct or mistaken, then I believe not much will happen. However if the reader adopts the attitude that this post requires refinement and further exploration then it might go somewhere. First, I'd like to note that evolution and physiology are different. They are not unrelated, but they are also not equivalent. And I suggest here that in order to bring forth better understanding of the chicken and egg paradox we would do well to look at physiology. Next, we need to see the entailments associated with this paradox. We do that by asking, "why?" When we ask this question we need to bear in mind that there will not be only one correct answer, but rather multiple correct answers. Okay so... Why do eggs exist? The first answer to my mind is... because chickens lay them. But, as any farmer will tell us, they also exist because the chickens were fed. I think there are other answer to this question, but we will leave them to the side and express what we have just asserted as to the causes of eggs in a different language. chickens: food ---> eggs Alright... Why do chickens exist? The first answer to my mind here is... because they developed from eggs. This seems to me like two answers rolled into one, since we may differentiate between eggs and the process of their development and growth. We can see this more clearly in a different language. development: eggs ---> chickens So we have here a coarse picture of the chickens' and eggs' physiology. We will write it once more so that we may see them together. chickens: food --> eggs development: eggs --> chickens We can immediately see the paradox here. It exists as a loop of natural entailment. It expresses an irreducible wholeness. I believe these loops are the essence of organism. No loop, no organism. And so when we turn our attention to evolution we should not ask... which came first? Rather we should ask... why did this loop evolve as it did? I'm starting to think that the chickens evolved with the ability to produce eggs, and thus reproduce. But now I'm curius- if the chickens evolved from the dinosaurs with the ability to lay eggs, then... I'm still not sure which came first. I'm beginning to think we have to go back even further to the dinosaurs, as the ancestors of the chickens, as they laid eggs. But a reproductive system is a complex thing, so how did they reproduce before the ability to lay eggs came along? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 He's doing the chicken dance wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Puddin', I think that in order for you and I (who seem to be the only ones who are truly interested in this) to explore this here we will have to bring our intuitions public. Intuition is not the same as solid understanding. And intuition is delicate. I frankly do not trust some of the members here at ex-C enough to make my intuitions public. In fact I am starting to question my very presence here. So... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I'm starting to think that the chickens evolved with the ability to produce eggs, and thus reproduce. But now I'm curius- if the chickens evolved from the dinosaurs with the ability to lay eggs, then... I'm still not sure which came first. I'm beginning to think we have to go back even further to the dinosaurs, as the ancestors of the chickens, as they laid eggs. But a reproductive system is a complex thing, so how did they reproduce before the ability to lay eggs came along? Chicken is a bird. BIrd lay eggs. What came first, the birds or their eggs? Birds come from dinosaurs, so what came first, the dinosaurs or the eggs? Dinosaurs evolved from egg laying reptiles, what came first, reptiles or eggs? The reptiles evolved from egg laying fish... So the question is rather, which animal laid the first egg? When asking the question, what came first, "the chicken egg or the chicken from an egg," it's a self-sustained paradox created by definitions of the words. The chicken you know today do not look the same as the chicken in the past. At some point in the past, the chicken looks more like any other bird, or dinosaurs, or lizard, than a chicken. The change is very gradual. So the definition what a "chicken" is, is more arbitrary than people realize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Here is the motherload of egg info. http://www.foodtimel...g/foodeggs.html Does this mean that eggs are meat, too? Do they have the same properties as meat? Yes they are considered "meat" because they are a protien that comes from an animal. Ok, slightly OT but had to share. 34,000-year-old bacteria still alive http://www.dailymail...hats-alive.html That's a bit creepy- I wonder if this bacteria is harmful to us at all? I know not all bacteria is bad. I get the impression that it is not. They didn't say that but I have studied enough genetics to know that many new discoveries are not always harmful to the outside world. The deep ocean world is fascinating as well. I can't believe they found this in the desert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 When asking the question, what came first, "the chicken egg or the chicken from an egg," it's a self-sustained paradox created by definitions of the words. The chicken you know today do not look the same as the chicken in the past. At some point in the past, the chicken looks more like any other bird, or dinosaurs, or lizard, than a chicken. The change is very gradual. So the definition what a "chicken" is, is more arbitrary than people realize. That's where I was going with my answer. I was taking the question as "What came first, the chicken or the chicken egg." The answer is Chicken. When that chicken was laid in an egg and it's DNA mutated into the DNA of what we now commonly know as a chicken, it's parent was not a chicken. Then when this chicken grew up it laid the first chicken egg. Now if the question is about eggs that birthed chickens, the answer would be, eggs that birthed chickens. So egg. And if the question is a chicken in general or eggs in general, then the question would be egg because the chicken would have had to evolve. And if you are viewing the question as to wether the species or the egg came first, the answer is slime. Life originated from slime which became a cell, etc. So my real question here is. What did you eat first this morning the chicken strips or the scrambled eggs??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skepticalme Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 The answer is Chicken. When that chicken was laid in an egg and it's DNA mutated into the DNA of what we now commonly know as a chicken, it's parent was not a chicken. Then when this chicken grew up it laid the first chicken egg. That is not correct. Individuals do not change species and every organism is the same species as its parents. Evolution is a very gradual process. The paradox here comes from our flawed concept of species. The truth is, there was no first chicken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted February 25, 2012 Super Moderator Share Posted February 25, 2012 http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/ I don't understand the relevance of the question. One might also ask, which came first, the woman or her ova? What's the difference if the egg develops internally or externally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Here's another view on it. Chicken is defined as a domesticated fowl. The first domesticated gallus gallus happend 8,000 years ago. Before that, it wasn't a chicken since chicken is a domesticated gallus. Whoever did it probably took a family of hens and roosters and eggs at the same time, so the answer is, what came first? Both chicken and egg, at the time of the domestication of gallus gallus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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