The chicken or the egg
The question Which came first? - The chicken or the egg? is one of the most debated arguments of all time.A chicken and egg problem is a dilemma or a deadlock situation where one cannot provide either item because one lacks the other. For example, you cannot find a job without work experience, but you cannot get work experience without first having a job.
As with most problems it is important to try to understand the question and a good place to start is by asking what is meant by 'the egg' :
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2 Another viewpoint 3 See also: |
The egg is assumed to be a chicken egg. This is a very obvious assumption given that the question implies that there is a link between the two.
If we assume that the egg is a chicken-egg then we have to define what is meant by a chicken-egg:
The egg is not assumed to be a chicken egg. In effect this changes the question to: "Which came first a chicken or an egg".
From a purely scientific point this question can be answered quite easily. It is difficult to decide when the egg began as any cell is sometimes called a egg. Let's call the egg the hard shell one, and the chicken the first feather covered animal.
The first hard shell egg was the amniotic egg laid around 200 million years ago, and was laid by the animal who was the link between reptiles and amphibians. It was only after this egg that animals could breed away from the sea. Birds would emerge 50 million years after descending from theropod dinosaurs. The first dinosaur with feathers was the Archaeopteryx.
The first chicken must have been the mutant offspring of a proto-chicken that laid the first chicken's surrounding egg. That is, unless one defines a chicken egg as an egg which has been laid by a chicken.
Common viewpoint
i.e. An animal that was not a chicken laid the chicken-egg which contained the first ever chicken. In this case the egg came first.
i.e. A chicken (that already existed) laid an egg (a chicken-egg). In this case the chicken came first.Another viewpoint
See also: