The first chicken Egg was laid by a non-chicken. However, that’s more theoretical than realistic. The mutational difference between generations of offspring isn’t enough for us to call the offspring a different species, it’s not a hard line. It’s only on a much broader scale across a population and large timeframe that they can differentiate enough to be considered a different species.
Purely from evolutionary biology & physiology: yes, it’s the egg. It has actually been fairly definitively answered for almost 20 years that Wikipedia has a section on this
By most definitions of the dilemma it will be the egg which came first. The very first “egg” in our world came long before birds are a thing. If we are strictly talking about chicken eggs, since the modern chicken is a domesticated animal, strictly speaking the first true domesticated chicken came from two non-domestic chicken parents… which created a fertilized egg that became the first domesticated chicken.
It’s the egg.
The way evolution works is that offspring might suffer mutations and not be 100% a copy of their parents DNA. As such, for any concrete definition of chicken there was a non-chicken that put a chicken egg.
There’s no argument for the chicken first, because a chicken needs to come from a chicken egg, but a chicken egg does not need to come from a chicken.
Neither the chicken nor the egg can cum.
Therefore, the rooster came first.
I hope I’ve been able to help answer your question…
If you had paid attention in school, you would know the answer. The concept of “Eggs” is way, way older than any bird.
The egg is literally part of the chick until it’s hatched. It’s formed by the embryonic cells, not the maternal cells. Ergo, if the embryo is a chicken, the egg is a chicken egg, and the chicken came first.
Now, it is arguable that an embryo is merely an undeveloped eukaryotic organism until such time as it is morphologically distinct from other organisms. A cell merely bearing chicken DNA is not yet a chicken anymore than a stack of lumber and a blueprint is a house. If that is the position you’re more comfortable with, then the egg formed before the chicken.
So whether the undeveloped embryo constitutes a chicken or not is the core of the question, and no, science doesn’t have an answer to that. That’s a semantic, philosophical, and to some theological question about what constitutes a chicken.
Dawkins solved it time ago.
Mutations are passed into the next generation and if we assume that only chickens can laid chicken eggs then the paradox solution is as follows :
A proto chicken (soemthing extremely similar to a chicken but not yet one) laid a proto egg of which a chicken hatched and then it could laid a chicken egg.
Here there is a reduced scope version saying that proto chicken can lay eggs, which depends on the eggs definition may not be 100% acceptable
The egg is the same organism as the individual that hatches out of it.
It’s like saying “which came first, the infant or the adult”?
Well now that you mention it.
Donkeys and horses don’t even have the same number of chromosomes.
But they can breed, which creates a mule (which is usually infertile, but not always).
Just because animals breed doesn’t make the offspring the same species.
Just because animals breed doesn’t make the offspring the same species.
Species is a construct and falls apart very quickly outside of the common barnyard and kidsbook animals. It can be a useful construct for understanding some things, but its not a “thing” that inherently exists in biology.
We can impose an idea on organisms, but they have no obligation to follow it.
No, but the fallacy is in thinking the new species appears when the egg hatches, rather than when it’s fertilized. The egg is already the new offspring.
Okay, let’s back it up a bit…
Unfertilized eggs do not create offspring. They either create menstrual blood/waste, or breakfast food, depending on the type of creature, mammal or non-mammal.
Every egg that hatches was previously fertilized (at least for sexually-reproducing organisms). The animal that hatches from the fertilized egg became a genetically distinct organism when its egg was fertilized, not when the egg was hatched or laid.
In the case of chickens, eggs are fertilized (if at all) before being laid; and when we talk about “unfertilized eggs”, we usually mean eggs that were laid without being fertilized. Such eggs were not part of the discussion until you introduced them.
I ate two fried unfertilized eggs just a few hours ago.
Unfertilized eggs literally never create offspring.
Maybe take a sex-ed class?
What’s your point? Unfertilized eggs don’t hatch, so they’re not part of the scenario in question.
What’s your point? Literal, and wrong, quote from you…
The [unfertilized] egg is already the new offspring.
A for enthusiasm, F for reading comprehension…
A quote isn’t “literal” if you insert a word that completely negates its meaning.
when it’s fertilized.
You seem to have missed that part.
Did you even read their comment?
https://lemmy.world/comment/24532177
No, but the fallacy is in thinking the new species appears when the egg hatches, rather than when it’s fertilized. The egg is already the new offspring.
This is completely incorrect. Only a fertilized egg can create offspring. But that is not what they said.
The question is moot, as soon as you start digging into embryology and evolution. The question dates back to times when people were mostly ignorant of these two fields of study.
