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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?"
I solved that question in a paper for a philosophy class years ago...
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Complete details of why the chicken crossed the road... ba dum bum
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Only for P = 0 or N = 1.
So when did the nuggets and fingers come into play?
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Something that was almost a chicken laid an egg that hatched into a chicken. So, the egg had to have been first.
So the chicken and the egg are laying in bed together. The egg's smoking a cigarette. The chicken says, "Well, I guess we know the answer to THAT question!"
They are basing their argument on a flawed assumption. They assume that the first chicken would have had to come from an egg because its genetic material says that it grows from an egg. It is entirely possible that the first chicken was born of a non-egg and of course without changing its genetic makeup, laid the first egg. There are examples of animals with multiple reproductive paths to the same result. Think of hydras, jellyfish, yeasts, fungi, aphids, slime molds and sea anemones to name a few.
I still believe that the first chicken was actually born of the very last chicken egg in existence, transported back in time by his noodly appendage.
So, what does a mobius chicken taste like?
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Q: Which came first; the chicken or the egg?
A: The Rooster.
Neither. It was the twit who said, "Why, God?! Why me?!"
I always thought this was a question of science vs. religion... If the egg came first, then clearly the chicken came from evolution (an animal like a chicken laid an egg that then became a chicken). However, if the chicken came first (scientifically impossible) then it was because made the chicken suddenly appear on the planet. So just wait for the ID people to refute this claim...
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Apparently, crap came first, the argument is plain stupid.
The egg clearly came first since chickens evolved from species already laying eggs.
If you ask if a specific chicken came before a specific chicken-egg, then probably yes, depending on the time of the laying/conception/[your preferred existance-deciding moment].
If you ask if a specific chicken came before it's own egg, then obvously, no, which is well-established by the laws of causality.
But, that those aside, in the more transcendal (and usual) interpretation the question doesn't make sense since development of a species is continuous and the whole concept of species is trying to break that continuous development into discrete steps. That process is bound to have boundary problems and the system of species should not be applied in those conditions.
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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.
So CNN and Slashdot are happily giving free advertising to The Mouse these days?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
For this solution to work, you don't need to identify the first individual in the history of bird ancestry that can be rightly called a chicken, you just have to assume that it exists. No matter what reasonable criteria you use to distinguish between "chickens" and "not chickens" (and there's no denying that there's lots of room for argument here), such an individual exists that was the first to meet those criteria. And it hatched from an egg.
The question presupposes that at a certain point there existed something that was suddenly entirely a chicken. We know this to be false. One feature at a time, one generation at a time, lizards gradually became more and more chicken. Both Taoism and evolution contribute to better understanding this question. From Taoism, understand that categories and names are arbitrary and inherently inaccurate. From evolution understand that chickens have gradually shaded into being over millions of years. From this, understand that within the span of one generation, there was no single change that gave the label chicken sudden meaning. The name chicken does not have meaning when distinguishing between two adjacent generations of things with chicken characteristics. It is like using a magnifying glass to look at an atom. The name "chicken" is inappropriate for single generation distinctions, and lacks usable meaning. Similarly, it is likely that eggs came into existence in a single generation, and so egg lacks meaning. Since both egg and chicken lack the semantic power to distinguish generations, the question is wrong as it is intended.
Of course, if you want to interpret the question not as it was meant, then you can say that lizards and their eggs came before chickens and their eggs, therefor eggs came millions of years before chickens.
Two days ago I was driving for a few hours in my car and started thinking about this and came to the same conclusion.
I knew they were onto me.... *puts tinfoil hat back on*
P = ~P
For those who haven't had any Philosphy classes relating to logic... P equals NOT P.
When they prove that, we'll I'm building myself a perpetual motion machine.
-PB_TPU_40 The trick to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
I never thought this was a real question which people actually even considered debating. The answer was always clear and straight-forward depending on whether you favored evolution or creation as the source of life. If you favored the idea that God created the whole world and its inhabitants as adults you obviously thought the chicken came first. If you favored the Darwinian evolution, then you state that it was the egg and that the chicken came from a pairing, mutation, or other accident of birth in an evolutionary manner. Beyond using this to summarize (and probably short-circuit) debates on evolution vs. creation, I don't think the question would have made it into popular culture.
A similar question was "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (to my understanding) wasn't really about angel-packing theory but was a question about whether you believed that there was a spiritual world coexisting with ours or whether spritual ideas came strictly from men and inhabitants of this world. If you believed in a parallel spiritual world the answer was infinite angles. If you thought that angels were butterflies or people or something with mass then the answer was non-infinite. There wasn't any real debate (do hallucinations of angels count?) but it was another question that simply summarized a particular stance of ideas.
All that comes to mind right now is that horrible song on Sesame Street or the Electric Company or something where they show chickens and eggs and chickens hatching from eggs and a country singer fiddling away singing "Which came first the Chicken or the Egg? The chicken or the Egg? The Chicken or the Egg? Which came first the Chicken or the Egg?" ad smeging infinitum. Grrr. There's going to be an infinite number of angels hunting down whoever posted this and reawakened that memory for me.
By today's definition: the scientist. The Sumerians (astronomers/mathematicians) beat the Greeks (who did both).
1) Do we eat chicken eggs? Their resolution of the argument seems based on the fact that the first genetic chicken was assembled as an egg before growing into a pecking, clucking creature capable of reproduction. But aren't the eggs that we eat unfertilized and unable to grow into chickens? If their definition of "chicken egg" is that which can grow into a chicken, then we apparently eat omelet eggs, cake eggs, and key lime pie eggs.
2) What was the first entity in the adult/egg cycle? Before the first chicken egg, there were ever-so-chickenlike adults with mutated strands of DNA in their unfertilized egg or sperm. It's hard to say that their offspring was 100% chicken while they were 0% chicken. So chickeness gradually evolved from the first entity capable of adult/egg reproduction, and that entity was certainly not very chickenlike at all. But it did start the cycle rolling. Since the creatures before this entity did not lay eggs, I posit that the egg-laying gene mutated within an adult creature. Therefore the chicken, metaphorically, came first.
3) I always read Slashdot comments nested.
AlpineR
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?
That's a philosopher. ;)
'Sensible' is a curse word.
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?
Cecil Adams' response was only correct for one interpretation of the question. That interpretation is a question of whether eggs of any sort existed before chickens of any sort. His interpretation is only useful if you intend to be a smart-ass by answering the letter of the question rather than the common interpretation. The more common interpretation of this question is whether chicken eggs existed before chickens themselves. That is the question that TFA seeks to answer.
BTW, I also answered this question years ago (though not before '84). All it got me was dumb stares from the people I told it to. Now that my answer has been "officially confirmed" I expect nothing but head scratching and comments like, "I don't remember you saying anything like that at all."
The answer is actaully quite obvious from an evolutionary perspective. If evolution happens between generations, then what came before the first chicken egg had to be a non-chicken. Thus the egg came first.
TW
If their logic is correct then it doesn't matter at what point the label "chicken" could be applied, what was contained the egg still must have been a "chicken".
But then again... I probably don't know you.
Of Code And Men
The Bible says that birds and animals were created on the fifth and sixth day. That would mean that the chicken was made before an egg came into existence. It's so sad that people disregard the Bible (special creation) and rely on theories like evolution. The Bible has been proven the most historically accurate book ever, while evolution is full of contradictory ideas which do not work out. It contradicts both the first and second law of thermodynamics, and much more which I will not go in to right now. Sure, it may seam fine now to not believe in God, but what do you think is on the other side after you die? You are dead a lot longer than you are alive. Are you 100% sure where you are going? Jesus came down to earth as the ultimate sacrifice. All you need to do to be assured you will go to heaven is believe what God did for you (sent Jesus to die for our sins), ask for forgiveness and repent (choose to turn around and follow God). No matter how many or how big of a sin you did, it can be forgiven without you having to "make up for it." So next time someone asks you which came first, the chicken or the egg, I pray that you proudly say "The chicken did" and tell them why.
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:
Perhaps
But, if you assume we are talking about chicken eggs and chickens, then strictly speaking the chicken came first, ince the egg that was laid by the pre-chicken was not, in-fact, a chicken egg, but a pre-chicken egg.
If we allow for any species of egg then we have to allow for any species as well and we are left with the question:
Which came first the egg laying creatures or the eggs?
(And that assumes the creatures would have to lay the eggs.)
The only difference between a fertilized egg and an unfertilized egg is that the fertilized one if incubated will eventually produce a chick. The unfertilized will not.
If you come from a more rural background you will have seen the occasional egg on the breakfast table that was a bit to far along in its development.
Perhaps hen egg laying is just like human females who keep making producing eggs every month regardless of sexual contact. It is just that the hen unfertizled egg develops a lot further then a human unfertilized egg.
I only know for a fact from a semi farm upbringing that the only reason we eat unfertilized eggs is because that is easier to mass produce. Have you ever seen an egg farm? Not a place you want roosters around.
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So if a chicken lays an unfertilised egg, that just contains yolk and eggwhite and no developing chicken, what sort of egg is it? I'd suggest it is still a chicken egg. Therefore it's not just what's inside the egg that defines what the egg is.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
That's just great, now everytime I sit down at my 3 egg omellete at IHOP I have to worry about the possibility of wiping out an entirely new species of chicken.