Well................

Living things evolve  through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell  of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote.

Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken.

Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.

Or...............


Vagueness theorists tend to think that evolutionary theory dissolves the riddle "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?".** After all, 'chicken' is vague. The idea is that Charles Darwin demonstrated that the chicken was preceded by borderline chickens and so it is simply indeterminate as to where the pre-chickens end and the chickens begin.

However, this line of reasoning only dissolves 'Which bird was the first chicken?'. Rather than implying that the chicken-and-egg question lacks a definite answer, contemporary evolutionary theory favors the egg. Given Mendel's theory of inheritance, the transition to chickenhood can only take place between an egg-layer and its egg. For a particular organism cannot change its species membership during its lifetime. It is genetically fixed. However, evolutionary theory assures us that organisms can fail to breed true. So although it is indeterminate as to which particular egg was the first chicken egg, we can know that whichever egg that may be, it precedes the first chicken -- whichever that may be. The egg's precedence is a biological rather than a logical necessity. Given Lamarck's theory of acquired traits, the chicken could have come first.

One might object that there can be no first F if the onset of F-ness is indeterminate. But consider a son who gradually grows bald in just the pattern that his father balded. The father became bald before the son even though there was no clear first stage of baldness. Here's a closer analogy. A sculptor works on a marble block only during the mornings. There is no definite first day on which the block became a statue. However, we can say the block first became a statue during a morning.

Indeterminate states can be determinately related. One of the virtues of the chicken and egg question is that it reminds us of this internal structure. The riddle also shows that there is hidden determinacy to complement the more common theme of hidden indeterminacy.

BBQ sauce

My Take: God created chickens. Chickens mated, hence, your egg.

I'll start taking bets on when the god squad will come here and flame you for implying that every living thing was not created by God.

Heh, He said Nugget...

Incorrect.  If the chicken's parents mated and produced a genetically mutated zygote that, upon hatching, would be the first true chicken, then the chicken came first, not the egg.  The egg is still that of a genetically dissimilar parent non-chicken.

The chicken then, upon finding a suitable mate, laid the first chicken egg.

So, chicken first, then egg.

The second theory has the solution right, but is "egg"straordinarily convoluted for this late at night.

the_reject

Damm, he beat me!

Gotta practice clicking "Submit" faster...

I'll place $5 on "less than 15 minutes", please.  [;D]

the_reject

Hey mace, that wasn't a flame anyway. Bet on.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Why did the egg roll?

Yeah, I suppose we could wait for an actual flame. Though usually there are at least a few civil posts on the topic before the "big guns" come in.

You have to admit, though, it's kinda funny that the post wondering how soon it will be before someone says that chickens were created by god (politely or otherwise) actually came after the first such post.

The egg.
W

Has got to be the Chicken ....

Eggs can't cum...

Someone want to explain to me why is it that when I think better of posting something like this that someone else always steals my thoughts and does it anyway?

THINK OF ALL THE FUNNY I COULD MAKE IF I JUST TYPED OUT MY EVERY THOUGHT!

[:D]

the_reject

The egg was first, but it wasn't a chicken egg.

I don't care wich came first, I eat them both. Both taste like chicken.....

The egg IS the chicken.


[thinking]  /  [sleep]


OTOH, many believe that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg.

With out a doubt he is the greatest guitarist,bowman,animal-activest that ever lived!  The first Ted Nugget concert was enough for me!


 BOB  [8D]

The chicken came first, obviously.  She had to get laid before the egg could.