Which came first egg or chicken?

[sh20000sh]

I think Egg first.

 

Every multicellular organism was evolved from unicellular organism, so chicken(with multi cell) is from egg(with single cell).

 

 

What I said can be different from what I wanted to say.

[Coryn02]

Chickens were bred from captured jungle fowl found in South America. These jungle fowl were still only tamed and not domesticated. Their offspring and descendants had to cross a certain frontier of chicken-ness in order to be considered chickens. As such, these chickens had to hatch from eggs laid by their near-chicken parents.

 

Therefore, I can conclude without reasonable doubt that the egg came before the chicken.

 

Unless you interpret the problem differently... Oviparous vertebrates have existed since the Devonian period (long before chickens!), and birds have existed for a long time before (mid-Jurassic).

 

If you think that a chicken must come from a chicken, then the chicken came first.

[orrrangeee]

So which came first, the baby or the man? I believe Adam and Eve were the first people. If He didn't create babies first, then why would he create an egg first? Besides, what would incubate the egg during its most vulnerable moments? It needs a specific degree of warmth to hatch, no? Therefore I think the chicken came first.

[Kestra15]

So which came first, the baby or the man?

...uh, the baby. Since you need to be a baby before you can become an adult. Fully-formed adults don't just appear out of nowhere.

[Ribombee]

Well my question is:

 

Assuming chicken were the first animal able to lay eggs but chickens hatch from eggs which came first? (imaginary made up theories allowed)

If that is the question, you just answered it via your very question. You said if chickens were the first animals to lay eggs... Then the chicken had to have come before the egg.

 

It's really a matter of how you look at it. Do you consider the question to be "Which came first, the chicken or eggs?", "Which came first, the chicken, or chicken eggs?", or "Which came first, the chicken-like ancestor or the chicken egg?"

 

The first answer is eggs, because species well before chickens were laying eggs. Even if you don't believe in evolution (I'm an evolutionary entomologist, so you will know where I stand), chickens are the result of domestication. Their wild ancestors still came before they did.

 

The answer to the second question is the chicken. You can't have chicken eggs without a chicken. You could have a chicken EMBRYO inside of the egg of another species (either ancestral or if you inject the embryo into an undeveloped egg in another species, which is essentially how cloning is done in mammals, too), but you can't have a chicken egg without an adult chicken.

 

The answer to the third question is the chicken-like ancestor, whether you want to consider that the jungle fowl or the progenitor species to the jungle fowl.

[georgexu94]

Agreeing to harlequinraven here. Are we to talk about eggs in general or chicken eggs? So if a dinosaur "missing link" egg hatches into the first chicken, then I don't know if you'll consider that a chicken egg or an egg in general still.

[gyiyg]

the chicken ruse was just a distraction and that is actually just a very convincing rock but by the time you're finished pondering this question I will have already made off with exactly half of your left shoe

 

(If you want an actual answer out of me I just haven't ever found this question worthwhile ever from even the first time I heard it as a child c': )

[Brotato]

First came the proto-chicken egg, laid by the ancestor that is only one generation too far behind to be called a chicken (definition of a chicken is debatable), from which hatched the first proto-chicken. That's my 0.02$.

Edited February 21, 2015 by Brotato

[Gusearth]

Right, the first egg/chicken that was within the range of the definition of "Chicken" came from the species right outside that range. (Proto-Chicken?) So the Proto Chicken laid a Chicken Egg, maybe from a gene defect, but that egg hatched into a normal chicken, which ended up on TJ09's scroll.

[orrrangeee]

...uh, the baby. Since you need to be a baby before you can become an adult. Fully-formed adults don't just appear out of nowhere.

But who took care of the baby during its most vulnerable hours? Animals? I belive Adam and Eve were created whole. Just my belief.

[Banyanpan]

I think the egg came first, and was laid by something that was not quite a chicken. Because the chicken needed to have hatched from something, so how could it come before it's egg?

[DustyBelle]

Magic or god says either or both occured as they were brought into being together from nothingness or the creator's imagination.

 

Just My Opinion.

[Waifumania]

neither the chicken or the egg. the tiny rocks you see on the beach is what came first.

[Confused Cat]

Since the question can't be answered (chickens need eggs to hatch from, eggs need chickens to lay them), I think chickens and eggs do not exist.

 

They are mythological creatures, just like platypuses.

 

 

 

 

 

[Zeditha]

- a chicken cannot spontaneously appear

- a chicken hatches from an egg

Therefore, if it does not hatch from an egg, it is not a chicken.

Therefore, the egg came first.

 

- an egg cannot spontaneously appear

- an egg is laid by a chicken

Therefore, if an egg is not laid by a chicken, it is not an 'egg' in the sense that we are discussing.

Therefore, the chicken came first.

 

I have solved the question. They both came first!

 

 

In reality though, the egg came first through evolution, or the chicken came first if you believe in creation.

Edited March 16, 2015 by Zeditha

[S0ren]

The egg came first. Eggs developed long before birds or even dinosaurs, clear back when life still lived in the water. Through all the long years and mutations, eggs got harder and formed shells, life forms slowly becoming more avian, until one day a chicken popped out.

[georgexu94]

To keep my sanity intact, I am withdrawing from this debate. harlequin's concept of the prototype chicken egg made my head hurt.

 

I suppose we'll never know some answers until we go back to the basic beginnings.

[Zeditha]

The problem with this question is that we already know the answer in reality - the egg came first because of evolution and dino eggs, etc. Therefore, to keep the question going, we have to create increasingly ridiculous and specific sets of circumstances, which are unrealistic and deter people from the question. Therefore, very few of us are actually keeping to 'no egg that isn't a chicken egg is allowed'.

 

The simple answer is that neither exist, or both came first.

[Sashimi]

I don't think neither of them did. I think the tiny particles, that in the beginning started to construct the world and it's beings, came first.

[TheScorpionKing]

What came first?

 

The rooster.

 

[Peachycupcake525]

Egg. See? In the phrase "egg or chicken" egg is said first. (although I normally say it "chicken or egg")

[Purpzie]

Darn it, I was going to say "The egg, because dinosaurs came before chickens and they laid eggs," until I saw the part that said "assuming chickens were the first to lay eggs".

Now I have no idea.

[FrostfeatherTheFirst]

The egg must of came first, in order for the chicken to become there must of been a mutation(or something) somewhere along. So Bird A laid the "mutated" egg to be some sort of form of the chicken, as they continue to breed and develop it gives us our modern day chicken.

 

[Amberleafz]

Both, the chicken was in the egg 

[AlolanVulpixMc]

but if the egg came first then who laid the egg to begin with so obviously the chicken came firrst