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.
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.