which came first

[show don't tell]

Im new to this board but have always loved debating people on this topic. The one question that has never been answered to my satifaction is which came first the chicken or the egg? If this been addressed please point me to the link.
Thank you

[ProfMoriarty]

This is a bit cryptic. Can you elaborate? It is a bit off-topic for eggs vs chickens, but I'm intrigued. (besides, I've already given my answer to the egg question Wink )

It would have been less cryptic if I could spell "proportion"! And it wasn't quite so cryptic when I first wrote it but it did seem a bit convoluted so I chopped the last bit off.

This first bit borrows from Hawkin's latest thoughts about the universe being bounded, which I can post a cite for when I can remember where I put the bookmark - it's on his official web site in the lectures section if anyone cares to track it down. This is a very simplistic paraphrase of what is thought to have happened.

At the time of the big bang the universe was a point of infinite mass.

The Big Bang produced matter by borrowing energy from gravity produced by this mass - the matter would have been in the form of plasma - i.e. disassociated elementary particles.

As this cooled, hydrogen atoms formed from the plasma. Hydrogen is the lightest element and would have been the lowest energy state available to the plasma.

The hydrogen was attracted into clumps by gravitational attraction to form the first stars. A star is a star by accident - it reaches a size where the mass produces pressures and temperatures that force the materials it is made of to begin to undergo a fusion reaction. In this case the fusion reaction converted hydrogen to helium. When the stars reached the end of their lives and went supernova they released this helium back into interstellar space.

This helium was then used in the formation of the second generation of stars.

The theory is that successive generations of stars, produced by accretion of materials from the previous generations, produced heavier elements - carbin, oxygen, iron etc., as a by product of fusion using lighter elements.

I said "a large proportion of" because I am not sure if this process is thought to have been capable of producing all of the heavier elements seen at present.

So the old song line "we are stardust" is literally true. And as I said this description is extremely simplistic.

As for the original question, neither the chicken or the egg came first in reality - they came together.

[Jose]

Thank you. I'm not quite up to the math or physics necessary to check the validity of the hypothesis, but I see what it is. It's a good idea.

...and I'll go back to my original statement on chickens and eggs, and note that the fossil record indicates that animals have been laying eggs for far longer than chickens have been around. If we want to talk about chicken eggs specifically, I guess we have to decide when to call the descendents of a Red Jungle Fowl a chicken.

[ProfMoriarty]

If we want to talk about chicken eggs specifically, I guess we have to decide when to call the descendents of a Red Jungle Fowl a chicken.

Thats true, but I would imagine that each generation would in theory be able to interbreed with both the previous and next generations, which would mean they were the same species. However, if you were able to go back enough generations you would expect to find that they would not be able to interbreed with an indiviual from the current generation, so they would be different species. The question is, at which point exactly did speciation occur? This is the same problem with a ring species, where geographical distribution of a species - for instance certain species of gulls, or of brambles, gives them an enormous range which may actually describe a complete ring. Individuals can interbreed with the other individuals for a certain distance each direction, but beyond that they can't. Where did they become a new species? It is impossible to tell.

Based on that it is certain the the chicken came from a chicken's egg, and the egg came from a chicken. At which point in the past could we say the ancestor of the chicken became a chicken? So my argument is that they came at the same time.

[Jose]

This is the same problem with a ring species, where geographical distribution of a species - for instance certain species of gulls, or of brambles, gives them an enormous range which may actually describe a complete ring. Individuals can interbreed with the other individuals for a certain distance each direction, but beyond that they can't. Where did they become a new species? It is impossible to tell.

In other words, we have here an example of two different species of the same Kind, or two different Kinds of the same species, or one Kind that is different Kinds.

uhh...otseng! Daystar! What do creationists call this kind of thing? (or, for that matter, what is a "kind")?

A can mate with B, B can mate with C, C can mate with D, but A can't mate with D. A and D are different species, by definition. But the intermediates (or should we say "transitional forms"?) all exist, and can interbreed if we don't go too far apart...

[perfessor]

The first person who spoke French - who did he talk to?

This is my answer to the chicken-and-egg paradox. I think the analogy is a good one - both languages, and species, evolve not as individuals, but as populations.

[Gangstawombatninja]

(I didn't read all the posts so maybe I'm repeating something some one else already said).

Neither. The chicken didn't come first and neither did the egg. Ocean water got trapped in bedrock containing nitrogen and produced ammonia which, through cellular bonding and the eternal quest for noblility (become a stable noble gas) began bonding with other elements and this big electron bananza began more and more complec atomic structure began to arise, like dna nucleotides, six of which bonded together to produce the first self replicator. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010_1.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010_2.html

Like I said: neither. Water came first. Actaully, star dust came first. Actually, energy came first because energy cannot be created or destroyed. Actually, there is no first because the infinite universes of the void have been impolding exploding forever, have never not been doing so and will continue to do so forever.

Neither. No first.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Im new to this board but have always loved debating people on this topic. The one question that has never been answered to my satifaction is which came first the chicken or the egg? If this been addressed please point me to the link.
Thank you

Dinosaurs were egg laying creatures, and dinosaurs existed long before anything remotely resembling a chicken existed. So eggs came first.

Evolution proposes that a line of egg laying creatures eventually evolved into chickens. Religion proposes that God popped the first chicken into existence whole.

[William]

What does it matter 'which came first'?

They both exist together.

Neither biological evolution or 'GOD did it' are incompatible other than in the details.

I think the details of biological evolution are better in relation to method GOD used, than the far more sketchy and abstruse versions of religious doctrine.

[Neatras]

What does it matter 'which came first'?

Because we want it to matter. The fact that the development of the egg is so much older than modern chickens is a trivial matter compared to how much we know about our evolutionary history, but it marks a turning point in how science can weigh in on matters that may have seemed entirely philosophical in the past. It's a changing of the guard, and one we should anticipate going forward.

[William]

[Replying to post 39 by Neatras]

Because we want it to matter. The fact that the development of the egg is so much older than modern chickens is a trivial matter compared to how much we know about our evolutionary history, but it marks a turning point in how science can weigh in on matters that may have seemed entirely philosophical in the past. It's a changing of the guard, and one we should anticipate going forward.

You are saying that science has addressed this question adequately enough to remove it from being a philosophical one?