FYI: Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg?

umm, well, then...shall I press on and ask, "Which came first, the dinosaur or the egg?" Lets see if you can answer that.

The genetic mechanism is the same for all life.

Sovereign individuals, not governments

But before it was hatched, that egg was a probabilistic uncertainty. So before hatching, probability would tell you that egg hosts that protochicken and not the modern version. Yes, there us a chance of a mutation into a chicken, but there is also a chance it mutates unto a dinosaur. Small, but there.

The probability function only collapses once the chicken is out of the egg.

The question that concerns me more is where did the first chicken find its rooster?

"Chickens, as a species, became chickens through a long, slow process of evolution. At some point, a chicken-like bird produced an offspring that, due to some mutation in its DNA, crossed the threshold from mere chicken likeness into chicken actuality."

Sounds more like part of creed than a scientific argument. 'And the bird made chicken walked among the avians, who knew it not' is a much more poetic way of saying the same darn thing. You know, unless evolution took a rib next that first chicken would have had to reproduce with something other than a chicken. It all stays on the same branch unless that chicken finds a way to make two chickens.

"Another way to look at it..." would be that God created the chicken first. Oh but that's not as scientific as saying a long time ago in a primordial pool far far away...

Its cute but I would much rather hear about the science. I remember reading something about OC-17 being produced by the chicken to help form the egg shell. That is a far more interesting conversation than corpus gallinaceo.

What came first, POPSCI the website or the writers for POPSCI, lol.

Oh and for as the chicken and egg question, "Life came first and multiplied".

But what IS a chicken?
Since all life is constantly in a state of becoming or changing, then all "chickens" are distinct individuals, and cannot be grouped for the purpose of this question.
Each "chicken" from the first to the last is an individual.
So we see that "a chicken" came from "an egg" in each instance.
Therefore "an egg" always comes before "a chicken"

I watched a youtube video of Chris Langan answering this quesion the same way

KillerT - I think youre wrong. The chicken one way or another can be grouped within a spectrum of dna. So even if one chicken species varies from another, there is a point in their evolution that we can say "this is now a chicken". And that change would have -most likely- occurred in the embryo. Its like saying a tree falling in the forest doesnt make a sound because a sound should be defined as a sound wave being observed which is just arguing semantics.

Now it is possible that the egg wasnt genetically changed as an embryo to make it the chicken, and that a pre-chicken bird was genetically changed enviromentally to the point where it entered that spectrum of chicken dna. IE: maybe it was really close to a chicken but had 2x more feathers and of a different color and 3 feet, but enviromental changes caused the chicken to mutate as such to become within the spectrum of chicken dna.

NoOneYouKnow Why do you say the chicken has to reproduce with something other than a chicken?
Why couldn't it have siblings, cousins, parents etc that it could mate with?
All that is needed is for the more "chicken like" birds to out-breed the rest over generations and presto, you have a new species.
The truth is all of the above contributed to the chicken. Domesticated birds were interbred with wild birds to create a new "species" called chicken.

So God did not create chickens. People and horny birds did.

Goo came first, then life came from goo and then for what ever other reason can replication of same said life, else you have just orginal new life again in wide varieties, then dies, which seems rather pointless.

Goo makes Life.

Life:" Hello, I'm alive!", die, the end. Pointless

Life with replication: " Hello, I'm alive and I made a mini me. Say hello mini me. "Hello"... Point-able!

buell If I applied that argument to people it would mean that an embryo is a person, and therefore abortion is murder.
Sorry, but an embryo is not a chicken. So the egg still comes first.

lol Just imagine if all life was created they must all have been alive on earth at the same time and have been dying off rapidly ever since. What a mess, good thing the Earth's climate will only support a fraction of them at any given time, so they died off and made room for us.

@KillerT

"Why do you say the chicken has to reproduce with something other than a chicken?"

*Breath*

Because the FIRST chicken would be the ONLY chicken in existence until you had a SECOND chicken. Which means it either has to wait for evolution to create another gallinaceo of the opposite sex or it has to reproduce with something else. Now chances are this chicken is either too horny or too short lived to wait for another chicken to evolve, so its going to have to settle with a member of another already existing species.

This is an unavoidable roadblock for evolution, this new bird's genetic material is merely added to that of an existing species where evolution requires it branches off on it's own. The species might get a new perk (assuming the mutation is not sterile), but it remains the same species.

If a "chicken-like" species reproduced over millions of years and became chicken proper, that still wouldn't be evolution. You started with one species and ended with one species - the same species as a matter of fact. Evolution would require a split resulting in an additional species, like the supposed relationship between chimps and humans. Chimps are still chimps, but a long time ago one chimp broke off and became a new species(well that's the creed anyway).

Further more, if reproduction had anything to do with it, then more rapidly reproducing species like rabbits should have outpaces us long ago, and even now should see more genetic variation. Yet despite significantly greater pressure to survive, they don't. Rabbits, as far as we can tell, have always been rabbits. Some species, such as beavers, we know for a fact have not changed for millions of years.

This has never been observed or replicated yet it is accepted by the scientific community purely out of the preconceived notion that evolution is already proven.

The Borg will multiply. Assimilation is logical natural evolution. You will be assimilated! ~ Borg.

Which came first, the human or the Borg? Hmmm?

Chickens lay chicken eggs. Fish lay fish eggs (if you can call it laying), so wouldn't neanderchickens lay neanderchicken eggs?

This is the problem with evolution (or the problem with our way of dividing species). At some point, neanderchicken will have to lay a chicken egg or a a chicken will have to hatch from a neanderchicken egg. Both seem kinda funky.

And as was pointed out above by someone I don't know, once the first chicken hatched, it would have to mate with a neanderchicken, which wouldn't result in a new species, just a neanderchicken with chicken traits.

Anyway, my point is that the chicken would have to come first since the egg whence it hatches wouldn't be a chicken egg by virtue of not being laid by a chicken.

@NoOneYouKnow
You seem to be ignoring that we DO know what species chickens come from because we can check their DNA, and we can do the same for any creature.
They came from other "chicken like" species, and those older species are still here along side the new chickens.
So evolution has been observed in many cases.
Keep in mind that chickens are only one example. There is nothing to stop a mutation resulting in twin unicorns for example who are able to mate with each other and instantly start a new species.
Its far fetched, but DNA makes it possible.
As for variation's, why jump to rabbits? I doubt you could even tell the difference between chickens and their similar non-closely unrelated cousins.

Betting on DNA to NOT evolve is worse than your odds of winning the lottery. You just cant win.

I think we are missing a very important evolutionary question here. How do you explain the natural selection path that leads multicellular organisms to create compacted miniaturised versions of themselves like eggs and baby offsprings?

I think those bigoted creationists have got it all wrong, harping about the evolution of the eye, (which Darwin himself had pondered.) They would be better off in serving their intelligent design cause, by pointing out the difficulty of explaining how to achieve complete functional spores and foetuses through the hit and miss processes of natural selection.

"Betting on DNA to NOT evolve is worse than your odds of winning the lottery. You just cant win."

This was the dogma NoOneYouKnow was talking about. You believe in something so completely that you'll ridicule other people for not believing the same thing even though no one has observed this thing you believe in.

Here's the logic: "We see different types of animals. Based on what we know, the only way these could have come about is through evolution."

It is no different from "We see different types of animals. Based on what we know, the only way these could have come about is by God creating them."

If you ignore that environmental pressures don't make genetic mutations, that almost all genetic mutations are very bad and that the body tries VERY hard to suppress mutations (because they are almost universally fatal), when an animal evolves from one species to another, it has to be able to interbreed or it will die out, which means its not another species. When it all comes down to it, a change has to be made that makes the animal not able to reproduce with the previous genetic set up. This isn't inconceivable if the two populations are separated geologically, but we just haven't seen this happen.

Dogs are a great example. I don't know of any other type of animal that can have such a diverse set of traits within the same species. The record low for a full grown chihuahua is 7 ounces (just over half a pound). It's not unusual for a mastiff to get into the 200 pound range. (Meaning the mastiff weighs more than 350 times as much as the chihuahua. To relate this to chickens, it would be like having an 8 pound fryer and 1.4 ton roaster) Still, if you have a very large stool (or very deep ditch), the two dogs could interbreed even though they have been separated geologically for a long time and have been bred to be distinct.

I'm not saying that evolution doesn't happen. I find the theory very dubious and there is a strong, state-sponsored misinformation campaign (called elementary school science class) which makes me even more wary, but it isn't impossible that something similar to what we think of as evolution happens. The fact is we won't know until we can use the scientific method (observe, hypothesize, test) to get to the apparent truth.

Just watched a cool show on netflix about big cats. turns out lions and tigers, two obviously distinct species on the outside, are incredibly similar on the inside. In fact, close enough to still breed with each other. Evolution doesn't tell us that a new species is born in a generation, it's gradual. You wouldn't have a proto-chicken who lays an egg that'd be considered a chicken, there'd be dozens or hundreds or thousands of generations of grey area, where many families share similar traits, until eventually one group ends up with stripes and another doesn't...

I answered this questions YEARS ago using the same reasoning and far fewer words in the form of a very simple question:

"Well, what did the first chicken come out of...?"

Haha - Neanderchicken!

"Given that we know less than 1% of what there is to be known, the missing 99% will always be filtered through ones belief in a creator."

All of our domestic cats, we believe; still have the genetic traits of the sabertooth, and have seen, in their evolution, rise of the resurgent sabertooth. That one in particular will always be studied for exploitation.

You'd think that if we created an environment that was designed to change, growing in difficulty over like ten generations from adaptation to the new demands, then demand more...we could be ranching sabers in less than 100 years. Going from lion or tiger stock would be faster-maybe. Inherent will to adapt vs dominance and satisfaction. Gotta take their satisfaction away by convincing them there's something the cat needs to do, but a lion for instance, if male it only gets off it's butt if it thinks it needs to eat, fight, mate. or crap. It's happy making the females hunt and kill, but it leads to a relatively small male population, which kills diversity by keeping a small number of traits active in the whole collective to be passed on.

This question has a very simple answer: The Chicken.

God did not create imperfect nor incomplete things, living or otherwise. Genesis is clear that he created man and the beasts, not embryos, not individual cells, and certainly not the "primordial soup" so fervently held to by evolution cultists, lol.

Let the flaming begin. :P I know it's coming, but whatevs. Nobody likes the truth when it involves the bible.

"At some point, a chicken-like bird produced an offspring that, due to some mutation in its DNA, crossed the threshold from mere chicken likeness into chicken actuality."

Absolute nonsense. Every chicken and the egg that it lays are the same species. There is no dividing line at a single generation. Species is an arbitrary construct defining differences, accumulated across thousands of generations. You can only identify two organisms as being a different species if they are separated by many generations.

Long before there were chickens, there were fish and reptile species that reproduced via eggs. Thus the egg existed long before the chicken.

It's odd to me how anyone denies biological evolution as a fact, an obvious one, at this point in time.

Give humankind a hundred thousand years, isolate groups over time, and keep them isolated from each other, eventually you have humans with different shades of skin, different hair shapes, different nostrils and lips, stronger musculature, some with higher intelligence potential, different color eyes....

eventually they'll be unable to interbreed, or will produce sterile offspring when they do, and will only be able to interbreed with their own types, speciation, I think it's called, occurs when they can no longer produce fertile offspring.

Same with any animal...

Give them a million years, and they'll likely diverge like chimps, humans, orangutans, gorillas did millions of years ago.

Of course during the age of fossil fuel we have made great strides in re-mixing mankind's DNA among previously isolated groups.

Dear Daniel,

Let me see.

God made chickens. Put man in charge of chickens. Now we raise them, eat them, and their eggs.

Chicken came first.

The Evolutionists say it is easier to believe the imaginary theory of a dead person, which can't be proved, but one must believe.

Takes just as much faith to believe in the Theory of Evolution, as it does to believe in the Theory of God Created Chickens.

The Wizards of Smart continue to propagate such nonsense, and dupes keep following it.

No matter how you slice it, there was something before the supposed event, then where did the dinosaurs come from? Where did the actual earth that they are standing on come from? Where did the asteroid that flew across space come from? Where did the bacteria or whatever that was on the asteroid come from?

If Evolution was a true theory, then the moon would be covered with its own life, unique from Earth. Saturn, all the planets and stars would be colonies of goo that formed from nothing that just existed for "trillions and trillions" of years.

Evolution is a religion. If you believe in Evolution, then there is no amount of facts or proof that will dissuade your belief.

God Created Chickens is a religion. If you believe in God Created Chickens, then there is no amount of facts or proof that will dissuade your belief.

So Evolutionist, have created their own religion, with their own Gods (Magic Goo Creators), with their own Profits (Al Gore), and their own Apocalypse (End of Time). It's just a modern day religion.

What there should be is a Separation of Stupid People, but alas, they aren't smart enough to get a job, so they go to College, and then to Masters, and then to PhD, and then to stupidity.

So thank you for attempting, half heartedly, to answer an age old riddle. Which came first God, or a man who doesn't believe in God.

RustyACE
Madison, TN

PS... Yes TN did host the Scopes Monkey Trial, and we won the case, but history has won the battle.

http://tshirtgroove.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/i-think-i-did-chicken-or-egg-came-first-tshirt.jpg

Should we not, then, at some point systematically square taxonomy with genetic science?

Now all we need is some evidence of a proto-chicken, oh yeah and luminous ether too.

The amazing ignorance regarding the facts of Evolutionary Theory in some of these posts just staggers the mind. A primer is obviously needed to enlighten those who are uninformed critics of the science of Evolution.

MISCONCEPTION: The theory of evolution is flawed, but scientists won't admit it.

CORRECTION: Scientists have studied the supposed "flaws" that anti-evolution groups claim exist in evolutionary theory and have found no support for these claims. These "flaws" are based on misunderstandings of evolutionary theory or misrepresentations of the evidence. As scientists gather new evidence and as new perspectives emerge, evolutionary theory continues to be refined, but that doesn't mean that the theory is flawed. Science is a competitive endeavor, and scientists would be eager to study and correct "flaws" in evolutionary theory if they existed.

MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is a theory in crisis and is collapsing as scientists lose confidence in it.

CORRECTION: Evolutionary theory is not in crisis; scientists accept evolution as the best explanation for life's diversity because of the multiple lines of evidence supporting it, its broad power to explain biological phenomena, and its ability to make accurate predictions in a wide variety of situations. Scientists do not debate whether evolution took place, but they do debate many details of how evolution occurred and occurs in different circumstances. Antievolutionists may hear the debates about how evolution occurs and misinterpret them as debates about whether evolution occurs. Evolution is sound science and is treated accordingly by scientists and scholars worldwide.

MISCONCEPTION: Most biologists have rejected ‘Darwinism' and no longer agree with the ideas put forth by Darwin and Wallace.

CORRECTION: It is true that we have learned a lot about evolution since Darwin's time. Today, we understand the genetic basis for the inheritance of traits, we can date many events in the fossil record to within a few hundred thousand years, and we can study how evolution has shaped development at a molecular level. These advances — ones that Darwin likely could not have imagined — have expanded evolutionary theory and made it much more powerful; however, they have not overturned the basic principles of evolution by natural selection and common ancestry that Darwin and Wallace laid out, but have simply added to them. It's important to keep in mind that elaboration, modification, and expansion of scientific theories is a normal part of the process of science.

So you can see that it doesn't take or require a 'leap of faith' to accept the evidence-based fact of Evolution. Critics use false equivalency to make Evolution and Creationism a 50/50 proposition when it is an 100/0 split based on evidence. Creationism is not science and any supernatural explanation has yet to have any falsifiable evidence presented to support its extraordinary claims. I understand that Creationists desperately want to equate Evolution to the level of their faith-based worldview because then they can claim it is just a belief. You'd think they wouldn't be so quick to bear false witness but it seems that lying to promote one's faith-based dogma is ethically allowed in some kind of godly loophole on truth. If you actually want to learn about Evolutionary Theory I highly recommend the Understanding Evolution website at evolution dot berkeley dot edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01.

The rooster came first. After that happened a hen for a mate was made with one of its ribs. After that the hen laid an egg. so all of you scientists are wrong--the rooster came first!

If believe in one GOD

Who gives a s---? They are both yummy! If you believe in God then eat up and don't worry about it. If not, then eat up and don,t worry about it. The only difference is believers have to say grace first. Atheists just dig in. Too much drama. Why all the fuss. Don't worry, be happy.

What if God made them AT THE SAME TIME

Firstly, 'PopSci' is a *SCIENCE* magazine, not a religious philosophy magazine. It's reasonable to expect the articles to be based on science, not theology. And right now, species evolution on Earth is a scientifically accepted fact; theological arguments should be posted on a theological magazine forum.

Secondly, to straighten out the argument, lets clarify the INTENT of the question: Using scientific methods, scientific theory, and scientific information, please answer which came first: the adult chicken, or the chicken egg?

I will restate the original argument in terms that (IMHO) are a little clearer.

Mutations occur at the DNA level in cells in all members of a population. The TRICK is that in an adult body, there are boodles of cells, and so a mutation in one cell doesn't have any real chance of changing the animal itself (other than becoming a malignant growth and killing the animal). BUT if that one mutation occurs in the half of the DNA strand that matches up with another half in a fertilized egg, then that mutation will be 'copied' to ALL the other cells of the foetus as it developes. Voila, the WHOLE animal is a mutant now. The vast majority of the time, that mutation will be a 'bad thing', and the mutant will die. BUT occasionally it will by pure lucky chance be a 'good thing'. It gives the mutant a better survival rate than his non-mutant "brothers and sisters".

Now lets call the mutant a "barely-chicken", and his brothers and sisters and cousins "nearly-chickens". The barely-chicken will mate with a nearly-chicken, and produce offspring. Some of them will inherit the barely-chicken DNA, and some will not. The ones who do will inherit the survival advantage, and produce more offspring than the ones that don't. Eventually, over many generations, the group becomes entirely 'barely-chickens'.

The point is, the very first 'barely-chicken', came from an egg that was laid by a 'nearly-chicken'. SO, ergo, from a scientific point of view, the chicken egg came before the adult chicken.

@ z-yogi
Religious Philosophy? Dude, what kind of fool are you? We all OBVIOUSLY can see that God made Chickens, chickens laid eggs, and more chickens hatched. Day 5 of creation, Chickens, other birds, fish, swimming mammels, and flying creatures were made.

Now, you may be thinking, "Who is this afterburn722 fool, and who does he think he is?" I'll tell you this, the Bible is nothing but the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.

So, my point is, the chicken came first. You either agree with me, or you wrong. And just an FYI, Science is Knowledge. Saying God made the world is not fantasy. IT is Science. Honestly, that Chuckles Darwin was nothing but a fool who was out of his mind.

"Chimps are still chimps, but a long time ago one chimp broke off and became a new species(well that's the creed anyway)."

@NoOneYouKnow: You of course realize that this has never been the premise of evolution except for those that tried to make a complex theory into something more shorthand. The theory of evolution states as it comes to chimps and humans is that we had a common ancestor. From there there were branches and then even more branches. Eventually one line split off into many other lines and one became that of the chimpanzee. Another line split off into many other lines and became human.

I know this makes less sense than a guy putting all of the animals (except the prehistoric breeds) into an enclosed space with predetors and prey, meat eaters and carnivores, natural enemies and co-reliant species all together on a big ol' boat and they made it off that boat alive after a 40 day flood...and then had something to eat afterwards. Or did they eat their young? Or all the dead bloated drowned animals? And who clean all the waste from that boat...man, that had to be a huge mess!

when answering this question my suggestion is keep it simple,
so the question is what came first the chicken or the egg?
answer: the chicken of course, but the chicken not exactly a chicken but single cell, the egg came later.
this is the answer if you believe in evolution, if you believe in divine creation, the answer is still the same, the chicken and the egg also came after.

Cute bit of trolling afterburn722. Gave me a chuckle! Thanks.

Also I appreciate the chance to clarify something in reply:

Science has rules. If a statement is proposed to be true without any scientific evidence to back it up, then it is NOT science, whether it IS true or not.

Science does NOT claim that all non-scientific explanations are false. It simply claims they are not science (yet).

LeonardoV59:
The 'fun' of the question is in the INTENT of the original question: Which came first; the adult chicken or the chicken egg?

If you want to get technical with the shorthand version of the question, then CLEARLY the egg came first, since there were dinosaur eggs millions of years before anything resembling a chicken came to be.

In brief, an egg could become a chicken (or else) but a chicken can never be an egg... it may produce it only ;)

Okay z-yogi, you got me. I was resisting joining the fray until your most recent comment.

You said, "If a statement is proposed to be true without any scientific evidence to back it up, then it is NOT science, whether it IS true or not." I agree with you 100%.

I think this is the crux of the difference between you and NoOneYouKnow. You two have different meanings of the words "scientific evidence".

IMHO, the phrase "scientific evidence" should exclusively be used to refer to evidence confirmed by the scientific method (observable, repeatable, falsifiable, testable).

rgraz65, Apparently z-yogi has thrown down the gauntlet. You said "The theory of evolution states as it comes to chimps and humans is that we had a common ancestor. From there there were branches and then even more branches. Eventually one line split off into many other lines and one became that of the chimpanzee. Another line split off into many other lines and became human."

z-yogi says that you gotta have scientific evidence to back this up. Other than the observed similarities between chimp and human DNA, which is the basis for our educated guess that humans and chimps derived from a common ancestor, what observable, testable, falsifiable, and repeatable evidence do we have of that? If we're honest, the answer to that question is none. But that's the consensus view at the moment and we really don't have any evidence to refute it, so it's easier to go along than to be smeared as a creationist, amirite?

My interest in chickens started right after CRISCO was
developed !

Logically, It is the egg that should come first and hatch into a species to be called chicken. The egg contains mutated genes, from the parents that must be different, as a result of evolution.

Hey mthorn10!

Another "rule" of science is Occam's razor. When there are competing theories explaining some 'thing', the one which has the fewest assumptions (ie: the 'simpler' one) is the 'scientific' one (and again remember: this does not mean that scientists assume or insist that it is TRUE; simply that of the competing theories, it is the one which is more likely to be correct, or at least more likely to be more correct).

So if there is NO *scientific* evidence for one theory, and SOME scientific evidence for the other, the one with SOME evidence is the currently accepted scientific theory.

The head scientist in charge, Lord, God, made the chicken!

It saddens me to see so much of these exchanges consisting of such embarrassing anti-evolution/pro-Creation statements such as those that seem to support absolute fixity of species (dropped by leading creationists long ago) and the weird claims by RustyACE; and an the other hand little from the evolutionists such as Spacehistorian and z-yogi other than the usual authoritarianism, slogans, and dogma.

mthorn10 seems to be headed in a more interesting direction.

One might point out that the question was originally a philosophical rather than scientific conundrum, but it does illustrate how philosophy (through the branch known as "natural philosophy") eventually graded into science.

The great divide seen in so much of the creation/evolution debate illustrates how science eventually evolved from an attempt to discover the phenomena and explain the workings of the natural world as it was observed, to an attempt to explain everything in terms of the natural processes that had been observed.

Originally, science was indeed limited to building only on a solid foundation of actually observed events, confirmed by written records of independent observers. On this basis of empirical observations establishing basic objective (or at least subjective) facts, inductive reasoning could produce generalized hypotheses, and deductive reasoning could take the apparent generalized facts and propose specific causes, speculate about possible exceptions, etc. The key to scientific progress was that nothing was to be built upon this layer of logic until further observations, especially repeated, controlled observations (experimentation), were able to positively confirm the proposals and eliminate (as far as possible) alternatives. Thus there was a natural and clear-cut "magesterium" of science that was entirely practical and separate from religious issues.

This began to change when certain philosophers and religious innovators proposed that since everything observed in recent history had been entirely ordinary natural processes with little variation, it should be inductively concluded that everything had always (or indefinitely, since some remote beginning) operated on the same principles and rates. Philosophically this produced or encouraged empiricism, pragmatism, etc., and theologically it produced deism and promoted atheism. The concept entered science first (or most significantly) in geology, when Hutton, Lyell, and others applied it to expand the field from observing existing geological features and processes to making claims about the unobserved origins of all geological features. This pretty much directly lead to the application of this philosophy to biological origins, through the influence of Lyell and his work on Charles Darwin. Darwinian evolution is essentially uniformitarianism applied to biology just as it was in geology.

Spacehistorian is both wrong and right about the rejection of Darwin's proposal. Darwinian evolution as set forth by Darwin as a scientific proposal was quickly rejected, and is not held by any living biologist. But as spacehistorian points out, what was essential about Darwin's proposal continues to be accepted -- not because it has been scientifically demonstrated to be a sufficient cause for the history of life it is said to explain, but because of the philosophy that makes the vague, general concept of gradual biological change over time the only plausible possibility to explain this history which has been tacked on as a new area of science.

Bringing in Occam's razor as a "rule" of science for awarding ideas the laurels of acceptance rather than a rule-of-thumb guideline for a working hypothesis yet to be tested is yet another form of bringing back philosophy to substitute for, or avoid the natural limitations of, sound scientific procedure. In a way, "God created them that way" is far simpler than any scientific explanation could be, and when science steps out of its natural stronghold and invades the realms natural to history, philosophy, and even religion, then it can't expect its answers to be considered purely scientific.

As for this particular question, we know that "chickens" are not a natural species, but domesticated junglefowl, so what makes a chicken isn't genetics but status and purpose. The answer would depend on whether keeping chickens began with captured birds being kept alive because it was handy to have their eggs readily available, or if eggs gathered for eating hatched and someone had the bright idea of raising the chicks to eat some and have the others lay more eggs.

The given answer does apply without argument to more recent breeds of chickens. Statements about birds evolving from dinosaurs and amniotes evolving from creatures which had no need for for the special features of amniotic eggs may now be accepted as scientific statements, but such events have never been observed, nor has any natural process been demonstrated to be a sufficient cause, so they remain statements of faith. The human embryonic "yolk" sack may be degenerate compared to what it once was, but it cannot be demonstrated to be a remnant from ancestral eggs, and it is not a useless remnant, as can be seen from non-creationist sources such as www.innovateus.net/innopedia/what-function-yolk-sac.

I was somewhat stunned by your comment Dreamsofold. It is written very intelligently and I really could not have said it better myself.

Maybe someone can explain this to me- If biological evolution is a theory predicated on the assumption that species evolve over time to adapt to environmental factors, wouldn't that logically result in all life eventually converging on an "optimum" design? In other words, it would seem to be logical that the biological evolutionary process would be "convergent" in nature, rather than "divergent". By definition, shouldn't a "natural selection" process result in some ultimate, dominant, biological species? Rather than a diversity?

The Bible establishes that the chicken (as well as the rooster) came first and not through the theory of evolution. At Genesis 1 it says that "God went on the say: "Let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind." And it came to be so....And God got to see that it was very good."(Gen 1:24, 25)

Hence, at the start of the 6th "creative" day (with each "creative" day being several thousand years long and not 24 hours), domestic animal, moving animal and wild beast were created, with each having their mate so as to proliferate and fill the earth. Later, at the end of the 6th "creative" day, our Creator, Jehovah God, ' formed man out of the dust from the ground.'(Gen 1:31; 2:7)

The Genesis account at Genesis 1 provides a brief outline of the chronological events in preparing the earth for human habitation, from its rock-like sphere to being a planet with abundant vegetation and animals, whereby Adam was formed, then Eve as his wife.(Gen 2:20-24)

The creation of Adam and Eve established that God purposed for the earth to be man's "home" forever (which has not changed, [Isa 45:18; 55:10, 11; Matt 5:5]). They were to "be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth."(Gen 1:28)

I enjoy a good philosophical as much as most people, but some arguments are little more than time wasters when we have more pressing matters at hand.

Make my eggs scrambled and the chicken grilled.

I don't see why creationism and evolution have to be in conflict with each other. I am a christian and I believe that God created the universe. However, if we read Genesis, it tells us that God plopped people and animals on the earth. It also tells us that the sky is a giant dome that has floodgates on it that make it rain. Obviously Genesis is not meant to be taken literally, because all we have to do is fly to the edge of the atmosphere to prove it wrong. I believe that we humans arrived on earth through evolution. However I still believe that God created us, but He used evolution to do it. Science and Religion don't answer the same questions, and people need to realize that, in my opinion. Religion answers the question why, and science answers the question how. Science tries to show us the means by which we got here, but Religion tries to show us why. Believe what you want, but in my opinion the two beliefs can perfectly coexist if we realize that Genesis is factually inaccurate but is a beautiful story that conveys the truth that there is a Creator who used the universe that we live in to create us.

Did the first one cross a road?

The egg was a common form of reproduction long before the chicken was developed from a woodland fowl (approximately 3,000 years ago in what is now China). It also preceded dinosaurs, and bad jokes.

Some people here like simple answers others like it complicated, OK if you need the simple version then you will like this one, for all of it started when God created everything, the end.
And others like it complicated so are talking about life of millions of years ago but life started about a billion years ago, and those that understand that explain it like this, that all life started with the appearance of plankton then single cell life that consumed it and so on until single cell became multicellular organism, until organisms expanded to require DNA, a fertilized containment like an egg that gave birth to fish, fast forward to literately hundreds of million of years of evolution (if you believe in that crazy notions)then the particular egg that was laid that made the chicken that laid an egg, the end.
my uncomplicated version is that the chicken started not exactly as a chicken but single cell and the egg came later, the end.

I take it that those of you believe it took billions of years to make the earth and evolve from nothing are not religious. If you would read the Bible Gods Word to all mankind. In Genesis 1:20-25 it tells us that God made everything and He made them full grown. The same goes for the earth, stars, and everything. He made the earth around 6,000 years ago Not billions of years. Don't just read the above verses Start at the beginning of the Bible Genesis 1:1 and read you will find out exactly how the earth and everything in was made. This clearly tells us the Chicken came first. God did not make a baby first to grow up to be Adam. No he made Adam full grown and Eve also.

Darwin wrote, that if there had to be two or more simultaneous evolutionary steps to get from one species to another, then his whole theory was wrong. Even as he wrote that, he failed to see the obvious need for the simultaneous evolutionary step of male AND female.

Were the writer's of the Bible smarter than Darwin when they recorded in the account of creation? "Male and Female created He them." I think so.

Floodmud!

So I gave up on reading everyone's synonymous rants about half way thru, but this needs be said @NoOneYouKnow...you make no sense. You rant and rant and rant but don't make any logical arguments ever. At some point I believe you said that in order for there to be evolution there has to wind up with more species than started....how do you figure? Ever heard of darwinism? The theory behind evolution? A species undergoes mutations that (theoretically) are beneficial to their habitat, and in doing, once those favorable genes are established, the unfavorable species almost always dies off leaving just one species....but it is a NEW and better adapted species...hence evolution..