There has been a question that has plagued humanity since the beginning of time; what came first, the chicken or the egg? Some scientists have looked at this question and laughed, saying that of course the egg came first. Eggs have been around since the dinosaurs! So for the sake of this article, the egg in reference will be a chicken egg.
So without further ado, what came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?
Position Chicken
Those who argue that the chicken had to have come first claim that the only way a chicken egg could have been made is from an already existing chicken. This is due to the fact that the protein that makes chicken eggs what they are (OV-17) are exclusively found in chicken ovaries. Therefore there is no other way for a chicken egg to be laid except for it being laid by a chicken itself.
Position Egg
Others will spitefully disagree and claim that the egg would have had to come before the chicken. For a chicken to get into the universe, it had to have hatched and grown from an egg, hence that egg had to be a chicken egg to produce a chicken.
The secret to this long argument boils down to how we define what a chicken egg is. It could have two definitions:
- An egg that contains a chicken embryo, but not necessarily laid by a chicken (therefore an egg laid by a proto-chicken with a genetic mutation that randomly made it a chicken egg)
- An egg that comes from a chicken, but doesn’t necessarily contain a chicken embryo (an egg that is simply a chicken egg because of the fact that it was laid specifically by a chicken)
Definition A supports Position Egg, a chicken egg came first because of a genetic mutation despite not being laid by a chicken itself.
Definition B supports Position Chicken, the only way for an egg to be classified as a chicken egg is if it’s laid by a chicken, so no chicken egg would be possible if there was no chicken.
What position will you take?
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