[Wild Fragaria]

Yeah, shredded left over chicken and chaddar make yummi omelette 

[Bobboau]

problem is if you look at the 'first chicken' and it's parent, you will find the were the same scpeiciese, in evolutionary terms there is no 'first chicken', such clasifications can only be made well after the fact. so it was the chicken, you see because every time you check the parent they will be the same speciese as the child, so you can just keep on going all the way back untill the first animal that layed eggs, eventualy you will get to a point were there was no egg laying atall, and reproduction would have no egg phase, but there would be an adult phase, so it is chicken that is winner!

[Flipside]

LOL I love the amount of answers this riddle generates

[Wild Fragaria]

problem is if you look at the 'first chicken' and it's parent, you will find the were the same scpeiciese, in evolutionary terms there is no 'first chicken', such clasifications can only be made well after the fact. so it was the chicken, you see because every time you check the parent they will be the same speciese as the child, so you can just keep on going all the way back untill the first animal that layed eggs, eventualy you will get to a point were there was no egg laying atall, and reproduction would have no egg phase, but there would be an adult phase, so it is chicken that is winner!

Hmmm, go you go back further, you will have living things in cellular level; go back further you'll have molecules and atoms.  Don't think the chicken's the winner 

[Bobboau]

yes, but when I say checken , I'm talking about an adult phase, adult can be defined as the point in an organism's life cycle after it becomes capable of reproduction, this is because as I said, you cannot define a point at wich the line of animals becomes chickens, so chicken can only refer to the adult phase, eventualy you get to a point were ofspring are not borne from eggs, or a point were there is no egg phase at all, just because the apearence of the individuals does not conform to what we whould think of as a chicken is irrelevent, because if we are going back through the generations all parent's give birth to the same speciese as themselves, so the thing we are looking at must be a chicken, even if it would fail the standard speciation test.

further more, even if we were to accept the 'first chicken' concept, the egg the the chicken hatch's from is not a chicken egg, it was layed by a non-chicken, therefor it must be a non-chicken egg, that by some imposable querk happens to have a chicken growing in it.

[aldo_14]

10 chickens in a day?)

Wasn't that a Crowded House song?


Ah, 10 seasons in one day. Oops.

[aceofspades]

...every time you check the parent they will be the same speciese as the child...

I'm not so sure. That would imply, by mathematical induction, that no speciation can ever happen. Obviously there are animals that can't produce viable offspring by mating with their evolutionary ancestors. Thus, at some point the genetic deviation becomes large enough for that to happen, and that is when we say that there is a new species.

Like, say, a chicken.
Ok, look at the smilie carefully:
 
That is what we are doing to this topic.

[aldo_14]

I think it's important to note that you don't 'see' DNA; when you have enough of a physical differentiation to create a new species, I'd reckon
 you could go 'back' a few generations or more and probably find enough genetic similarity to group those organisms as part of the new species (rather than the old).

(NB: obviously have not read up on the exact bounds of speciation when writing the above, not sure if it's biologically correct to do it in such a way)

[Grug]

I always thought of the egg and chickent thing as asking the wrong questions. Kind of like the answer "42" from the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy".

In the end, we have chickens today, most likely did not have today's chickens in the past (unless your science book comes from sunday school maybe), and something happened inbetween.


Just always keep in mind: Whenever life gets you down Mrs Brown...
(pinched it from here)

[Colonol Dekker]

My own view on the correct answer is that the first chicken came before the first chicken egg.
2 parents with (through evolution type stuff TM ) 90% chicken DNA - 10% pre chicken DNA (rough estimates) got jiggy/knocked boots/horizontal mamba/etc and the subsequent chicken was 100% chicken, but the egg was not 
Sorry bout that last post, work headache and 2000 yard stare of boredom are setting in....

[Herra Tohtori]

Meh, total solution is here:

The Easter Bunny was first. And it lay an egg (many of them, actually), which contained the first chickens, and they were really chickens whether or not they were inside an egg or not. So the egg and chicken appeared simultaneously.

[Grug]

Try looking at the solution in another way:
Two human races have a child, say someone from china and an aboriginal. They give birth to a chinese-aboriginal. Before then, there was no such thing as a chinese-aboriginal (for arguments sake).
So what came first? The chinese-aboriginal or the chinese-aboriginal fetus / new-born / baby / child.

It's the same question different context, yet slightly more clearer to see the answer too if you don't muddy it up with additional details.

[Flipside]

Just always keep in mind: Whenever life gets you down Mrs Brown...
(pinched it from here)

LOL Bruces Philosophers Song is still my favourite

[Sesquipedalian]

"I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," [Mr Papineau] said.

"If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg."

Ah, but why should we grant that?  It is equally viable to say that it is a chicken egg if and only if it is laid by a chicken.  Papineau does not argue his definition of what constitues a chicken egg, but merely asserts it and provides an illustration of his assertion.

If we do not accept his assertion but instead choose the alternative definition of "chicken egg," the entire position falls apart.  Prof Brookfield's position is identical to Papineau's, in that he uses the DNA of the organism within the eggshell as the defining characteristic of the type of egg it is, and therefore it falls to the same objection.

As usual, arguments that contains the word "surely" are rarely sure at all.


Bourn's argument is true in itself, but it misses the point of the debate.  Pro-chicken arguers are not debating the prior existence of eggs as a reproductive means in general.  Instead, they are arguing that the chicken had to exist before the chicken egg.  Both Brookfield and Papineau recognise this and address their arguments towards the point of debate, but Bourn misses it.

Final results: inconclusive.

[Grug]

Just always keep in mind: Whenever life gets you down Mrs Brown...
(pinched it from here)

LOL Bruces Philosophers Song is still my favourite

Yeah, I love the "I drink therefore I am".

Sesquipedalian - too clever. =| (or I'm just too dumb... )

[aceofspades]

Sesquipedalian, yes your criticism of Papineau's argument is completely correct. Wasn't he the farmer guy? Anyway, I still stand by my valiantly pro-egg position. Wait, that sounds like pro-life...*headdesk*

[Edward Bradshaw]

Ive always thought this was a ridiculous question as soon as I learnt the basics of evolution, and I dont understand why so many apparently intelligent people have such trouble grasping the concept.

A "chicken" is simply a man made term. Where do you draw the lines as to what is and what isnt a chicken? If we found in a new species of bird, through what criteria would we be able to say that it is or isnt a chicken?

Example, is this a chicken, or another kind of bird?
http://www.indiana.edu/~ornith/orders/galliformes/GAQU.jpg

Or how about this one:
http://www.sddot.com/kidspage/Images/treevor/pheasant.gif

Or how about this one:
http://www.dto.com/images/managed/1485.jpg

Now you can say for certain that this fella...
http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/chicken/chicken-farm3.jpg
...is a chicken. But the lines are arbitrary, and as you look at more and mroe birds it becomes harder and harder to say what is and what isnt a chicken.

The question is therefore meaningless, asking which came first. Its like asking which came first, the fish or the egg. But what consitutes a fish? Some fish are warm blooded, and some fish even have lungs. Nature doesnt draw lines, everything that has ever evolved has only ever been a modified version of whatever its ancesters were.


Ed

[aceofspades]

You're not really debating the validity of the chicken-egg question though. I, and others, have said "assume that there is some set of conditions on DNA from which one can determine whether an organism is a chicken or not, conclusively. Then the chicken/egg came first, because..." You're contradicting a premise of the argument - that there are such conditions, and that they are sensible enough to be argued (sorry, debated  ) about. I'm more interested in the logic - that is, what comes after the ellipsis in my illustrative sentence above.

[Edward Bradshaw]

You're not really debating the validity of the chicken-egg question though. I, and others, have said "assume that there is some set of conditions on DNA from which one can determine whether an organism is a chicken or not, conclusively. Then the chicken/egg came first, because..." You're contradicting a premise of the argument - that there are such conditions, and that they are sensible enough to be argued (sorry, debated  ) about. I'm more interested in the logic - that is, what comes after the ellipsis in my illustrative sentence above.

But what is a chicken? If you use the word in a practical application you very quickly realise the question is pretty much meaningless, and the only way to make it make any kind of sence is when you come up with this arbitrary set of critera by which to say what is and isnt a chicken, to look back in the chickens lineage of ancestors and point to a specific point and say "right, this is a chicken", for no real reason at all other than it fits your critera you deciced upon.

Ed

[Stealth]

That's quite obvious because even God (despite His obvious lack of common sense in some cases)

the instinctual arrogance of humans never ceases to amuse me.