The Egg

[YEC]

show dont tell asked in an earlier post which came first the chicken or the egg.

I thought I'd present some insight about the egg.

The eggs of land dwelling animals are quite complicated. The nucleus of the her eggs must be packaged in it’s own private pool of liquid.
The precious yolk where the new life develops is surrounded by the white, which sustains the the developing infant. The yolk is attached to the shell with a shock absorbing suspension of elastic threads, while the shell that contains it all is a masterpiece of engineering. It has to be exactly the right strength: hard enough to stay in one peice when the bird lays it then sits upon it , but soft enough to let the chick peck its way out when the time comes. It has to be waterproof, and yet porous to air so that the chick can breathe.
Anyone know how the egg could have evolved.

ref. Creation and Evolution p.48 by Alan Hayward

Personally I think it points to the chicken coming first.

[Nyril]

Anyone know how the egg could have evolved.

As it happens, yes. But, to a more important question, does it matter? If I can't sit down and explain to you how every single organ, every single chemical, every single behavior came to be in every single creature on the planet, does it automatically default the winner of the debate to god? Does it offer even the slightest bit of support for any other ideas for how life got to be where it is now? No.

And regardless, say I can't explain it off the top of my head. You give god this round, and then you go and insert god into every other slot that we can't fill with evidence. What then? Say at a later date the means by which the egg evolved was discovered, and it was found to be most obvious in hindsight (like all true scientific discoveries). God is then pulled out from that gap, and the region he covers gets smaller. Eventually, if we manage to explain every single thing we presently can't answer, god vanishes.

The more important question is, why do you care? Do you actually have an interest in learning something? When you came to this board, and other's pointed out several places where you had posted, I got around to reading your typical responses to them, and without exception the answer seems to be no. No matter what we manage to come up with, no matter what bricks of evidence we can generate, your answer will follow the lines of a bit of hand waving in which you ignore everything we've written and simply restate your original question with a tad more emphasis.

If I'm wrong, by all means do correct me. I would honestly love to learn that a negative opinion I have on someone is entirely unfounded.

I feel this to be very on topic, more so then your original question.

[Nyril]

In the spirit of actually answering the question, I'll give it my best shot.

show dont tell asked in an earlier post which came first the chicken or the egg.

Easy, chicken. I saw a very interesting article on TO about it.

The eggs of land dwelling animals are quite complicated.

Granted.

It has to be exactly the right strength: hard enough to stay in one peice when the bird lays it then sits upon it , but soft enough to let the chick peck its way out when the time comes.

Unless by exactly you mean, "an extremely wide range" you are incorrect. The difference between too soft and too hard is vast. Birds are light, and chicks are in possession of a wonderful thing we often refer to as a beak. Regardless, the strength of the shell changes during incubation, and birds have yet to have a problem with it.

It has to be waterproof, and yet porous to air so that the chick can breathe.

Why waterproof? Couldn't the bird simply manage the nest in a spot where it doesn't get wet?

Anyone know how the egg could have evolved.

Start with the first egg, the very first one. If the creature successfully matures, the egg is a success. As creatures discover that eating eggs is easier then hunting, only those eggs that are not eaten hatch. These eggs could be harder to break, eat, see, etc... Expand over several thousand generations and you have it.

Personally I think it points to the chicken coming first.

Indeed. But not in the way you mean.

[YEC]

Why does or would it matter?

The egg is just another item we find that seems to be just right. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm.

But of course the evo answer is...it must have been evolutionism, there is NO other option.

[YEC]

from Nyrils post:
Start with the first egg, the very first one. If the creature successfully matures, the egg is a success. As creatures discover that eating eggs is easier then hunting, only those eggs that are not eaten hatch. These eggs could be harder to break, eat, see, etc... Expand over several thousand generations and you have it.


What happens to the egg over several thousand generations? You mentioned something here but didn't really explain what or how.

[ST88]

Why does or would it matter?

The egg is just another item we find that seems to be just right. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm.

This is the classic Anthropic Principle problem. Why are things just right to sustain life? There are always two answers to this problem: either it was designed that way, or it happened by chance and we are here to view it. If you have a predisposition towards one direction or the other, that will be your answer to it.

But of course the evo answer is...it must have been evolutionism, there is NO other option.

Quite the contrary. Evolution is what we might call a best available explanation. It's not dogmatic, it just happens to be the best answer. Evolution doesn't even discount the idea of a deity, it doesn't even try to address that question.

As far as the egg goes, it wasn't invented by the chicken. Eggs are a classic way to reproduce -- coral animals and plankton and sea urchins and fish all produced eggs before birds. Evolving from a membranous egg to a calcified one is not a problem for evolution. And reptiles perfected the calcified egg, so the answer lies in the transition from amphibians to reptiles. It is possible that the membranes of the eggs got more and more protective over subsequent mutations so that instead of being laid in open water, they could be laid in mudflats, away from the usual predatory suspects (fish, other amphibians, etc.). Since this conferred an advantage to these (this) species, they survived. It is not that difficult to imagine that these eggs would become more and more protective through subsequent generations. As the land animals could gain access to more and more sunlight (being on land for longer periods), they could produce vitamin D that would help metabolize calcium for use in their stronger eggs, and eventually would not require the presence of water at all.

The strength of the shell is in direct proportion to the amount of calcium (or vitamin D to metabolize it) in the animal's diet. If the animal evolved to crave enough food with calcium in it, it will produce sufficiently calcified eggs.

If the egg is too hard, the individual inside cannot get out and therefore will die and not reproduce. If the egg is too soft, the individual is not sufficiently protected from the environment and therefore will die and not reproduce. In either case, if the parent animal produces inadequate eggs, its genetic line will not survive. If there is a mixture of adequate and inadequate eggs, its genetic line will have a better chance of survival. If all eggs are adequate, it will have an even better chance.

[Tigerlilly]

YEC wrote:
Why does or would it matter?

The egg is just another item we find that seems to be just right. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm.

This is the classic Anthropic Principle problem. Why are things just right to sustain life? There are always two answers to this problem: either it was designed that way, or it happened by chance and we are here to view it. If you have a predisposition towards one direction or the other, that will be your answer to it.

This is another problem, however. Earth and the way everything works on it is not "the best" as YEC assumes, and it is not perfect.

Life is sustainable not because it was designed to be, but because the planet is good enough for OUR needs through evolution. We evolved to meet the planet, not the planet to meet us.