Slashdot Mirror
Chicken and Egg Problem Solved
Java Pimp writes "It seems scientists and philosophers now agree which came first. The Egg. From the CNN article: '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.' So, does this mean we can now show P=NP?"
Uhhhh... wrong on at least two counts.
First, P=NP does not mean "The truth value of P is the same as the truth value of the negation of P", which is what all of your notations mean. P=NP refers to the unsolved question of whether (and how) we can reduce NP-complexity algorithms to polynomial (P) complexity. Lacking a way to do this makes NP problems prohibitively expensive to solve with conventional computers.
Second, the "chicken and egg" question was never about a contradiction. More of a recursion issue, and frankly anyone who believes in evolution should have already reached the conclusion given in the summary.
If anyone has trouble with this:
The verb "to lay" always requires an object; i.e. you must lay something, not just lay. The slang usage "getting laid" (meaning someone's having sex with you) is grammatically identical to an egg being laid by a chicken (a chicken is laying an egg); both a subject (the chicken) and an object (the egg) are involved.
The phrase "Now I lay me down to sleep" works grammatically because it's reflexive: the object here is "me". "Now I lay down to sleep" would be incorrect.
If you don't have an object, use "lie", not "lay".
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your college paper doesn't pre-date Cecil Adams, who published the same answer in 1984: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The mutation happens in the germ line cells of your parents. So the almost-chicken-daddy-with-bad-swimmers came first, then the egg, then the chicken. Unless it was the mommy-with-bad-floaters.
Not to pick nits, but ... here's a nit I'll pick (just a "pet peeve").
"Begging the question" doesn't mean "begs for the question to be asked." It's a fallacy in reasoning that means something like "assuming that which is to be proved in a premise from which the proof is derived." It can be more loosely used to mean "avoiding answering a question by a very verbose non-answer." There's a pretty good write-up in the wikipedia that can be found here.
Why is it called begging then? From the article: