what came first the chicken or the egg?
5440
This is actually very easy to answer, based on evolution the egg had to come first. Evolution works like this: There are slight changes in the genetic information of the sex cells (i.e. eggs and sperm) of individuals that are passed on to the offspring of any two parents. These changes in the genetic makeup are called mutations. Mutations can either have: 1) A deleterious effect on the offspring (genetic disorders may arise, many times these are lethal); 2) sometimes these mutations may be advantageous, making an individual more fit than its neighbors (this is sometimes referred to as conferring an advantage); or 3) these mutations can have no effect, making no change from parent to progeny.\n\nIn the case of the chicken, it must have evolved from something else that became less fit than the chicken and eventually becoming extinct. The chicken became a chicken from this other organism through mutations that built up over time in subsequent generations. However, whatever the genetic makeup that finally became defined as a chicken, that individual was first conceived and developed in an egg before being hatched. The egg and sperm that fused to produce the chicken didn't bypass the period of gestation within an egg that had developed in the bird family millions of years before the chicken came along.\n\nSo the simple answer to this question is the egg came first -- unless you believe in fairy tales?
187832
The chicken. The Bible tells God created all living animals and then provided for them to reproduce. So the egg was how they reproduced.
99175
Chicken (Gallus domesticus) didn't exist until its domestication around 2000 BC in Indochina. The first chicken came from the first chicken egg, which was laid by a red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). Whether you argue creation or evolution, the fact that humanity predates and is responsible for the speciation of chickens from red junglefowl should lay the "chicken or the egg" question to rest. \n\nFrom an evolutionary perspective, this answer holds for all species: the first member(s) of any species were the offspring of another very similar species, i.e. evolution argues that the egg always comes first. \n\nFrom a creationist perspective, this answer is anomalous, since all species that predate humanity originated as adults around 4004 BCE, i.e. creationism argues that the red junglefowl came before the red junglefowl egg.\n\nHowever, here is also an intersting analysis: Scientists think the first domestic chickens were bred from Red Jungle Fowls more than 8,000 years ago in the region now divided into Thailand and Vietnam. People bred chickens first for cockfighting contests, later for eggs and meat.\n\nSo the first official "chicken" pecked its way out of an egg laid by a bird that was not-quite-a-chicken. Depending on how you look at it, the egg--or the wild chicken--came first.\n\nIn creating the domestic chicken--and coming up with some 175 varieties--human beings also created a world where chickens rule the roost: There are more chickens than any other kind of domesticated bird on Earth.\n\nAnd where did birds come from? Scientists think that a group of egg-laying feathered dinosaurs were probably the ancestors of today's birds. So if it weren't for dinosaurs, there wouldn't be any Jungle Fowl OR chickens.\n\nWe've solved the riddle of where chickens came from. But there's still the question of where eggs came from.\n\nScientists say eggs--handy miniature incubators of life, nutrients already packed inside--evolved more than 1 billion years ago, in the oceans of Earth. When land animals evolved about 250 million years ago, their eggs had a tough covering to retain moisture on dry land. Egg-layers like amphibians, reptiles, and insects flourished. The first "land eggs" pre-dated chickens by about 249,992,000 years.\n\nSo "the egg" may be one answer to the old riddle, but here's another, if a little longer: The chicken came after the bird, the bird came after the dinosaur, the dinosaur came after the egg. And the egg came long after the first single-celled bacteria, the prokaryotes, evolved in the oceans, some 3.5 billion years ago. Ha!
995613
Well, Studies have shown that life started with a single cell organism. This was figured by the adaptation that they grew to multiple cells which were mammals. So the correct answer would be "The chicken came before the egg.
53344
Which came first - the chicken or the egg? \n\n"The chicken" came first - in the sentence of the question. \n\nIf the question is phrased differently, the answer is different.
327711
i actually know the answer to this question..i remember reading it somewhere..i just forgot where..anyway...the answer is the chicken came first for two reasons (based on your beliefs):\n\n1. you believe in god creating everything..therefore he created the chicken\n\n2. you believe in natural selection and evolution, so the chicken evolved from some other animal
16841
The egg.  It probaly evolved from dinos. Two types of dinos could have created the first chicken egg.
58521
The egg.  Chickens and in fact, all birds, evolved from dinosaurs - which laid eggs.
995819
I think the chicken evolved from something else (or God created the chicken), and the chicken was made to then reproduce. And then from the reproduction came the egg. Because you see, a egg can come from a chicken, but an egg cannot be created without a chicken. A chicken can evolve from other animals, but it cannot come from an egg originally.
517841
The egg.  Dinosaurs were laying eggs far before chickens had evolved, so the egg had to've come first.  :)
494548
The chicken definitely came first when God created the animals and then the chicken layed the egg.\n\nOh, F.Y.I and P.S. to all you city dwellers:::\nChickens lay eggs whether there's a rooster present or not.\nHe hasn't got a thing to do with her egg production. His job is to FERTILIZE the egg before she lays it thereby creating a chick.
1186972
the egg was a mutant that turned into a chicken, so the egg came first
435774
Well, if we're going by the Theory of Evolution, the egg.  As the chicken's ancestors were slowly evolving to the current form of chicken, the last one who's DNA was  99.9999999999999999999% similar to the modern chicken layed an egg which contained 100% chicken.  So, the egg came first.
219004
In my opinon.. the first chicken egg pre-dated the first chicken.\n\nAt one point there was a creature that was only one mutation away from being it chicken - it was ALMOST a chicken.  It mutated and then laid an egg that expressed the mutation by hatching into the worlds first full fledged chicken.\n\nThis question can be argued so many ways...  of course, if you don't accept the theory of evolution, my arguement is meaningless.
166906
well it really depends on your religion. If you believe in God and that he created all things in the beginning, it would be the chicken because he created the animals first. If you don't believe in God, then there's really no answer unless the chicken slowly evolved to be an egg breeder, so that means teh chicken came first
993203
Eggs.  Fish lay 'em, and fish evolved before chickens.
541818
The chicken came first