The Chicken or the Egg?

[UserName]

Maybe it was a story of love.
There where two totally different animals.
They fell in love.
They made love.
They female hatched two eggs.
One of a female one of a male.
They both carried some characteristics from both parents.
Which made the chicken.
The male and female chicken made more chicks and eventually thats how we have chicken.

[Spirit]

Just an FYI -

Although this conversation can take many different avenues, please remember that this is not MoS and all posts should remain mature and relate directly to the topic. All posts not following these guidelines will be moved to MoS, so that the thread is not tainted.

This is not directed towards any particular post, just a reminder, since some posts could be considered "off the beaten path".

[Hraesvelg]

Y'know, I never even noticed which section this was in. How is this in any way a mature discussion? It started off with a poll that included Pokemon. That sort of fails that particular litmus test. I'd say this should all be moved to MoS.

[Spirit]

It could actually be a philisophical discussion, if it stays on track. Not to mention, even mature discussions need a little humor every now and then to keep things in perspective. As it stands right now, if it stays serious, we will leave it here.

[lamchopz]

I'm sure if Pikachu had been in the poll, the outcome would have been decided long ago. lol

On topic and to be serious: This is the exact analogy to the mother and the child. The child grows and becomes an adult just like the egg grows into a chicken. We're being caught in a loop, and hence, this age old question.

I'm not a philosopher but I will hazard a guess here:

If we liken the egg to the inchoate form of an idea, then the chicken must be the mature form - the revolution. So in that sense, the egg comes first.

Now when we say "but chicken come from eggs", we are making generalisations while solving a specific problem. Which individual chicken and which eggs? The chicken individual here doesn't come from the egg in consideration. So in temporal position, the chicken must have come first.

Now if we extend the question to the "origin of chicken", no one knows... for sure. The reason is that new researches always overturned common and established beliefs. For example: A while ago, we believed that the flightless birds such as emus and ostriches once shared a common flightless ancestor. A new research suggested the contrary: in fact, each species lost its flight after diverging from ancestors that did have the ability to fly. [source]

Thinking of the Bible, one may argue that God created a pair of rooster and hen in the beginning, and so the chicken population expanded (just like Adam adn Eve, and so, us). But let's not get into the religious aspect of this. lol...

[_JunShyr_*FTW*]

Which came first? You or your mother? Without a beginning there can be no end. The end result is the egg; so the beginning is the chicken.


Where did the first chicken come from? Well, you can either say God created animals and allowed the animals to breed and reproduce, providing us with eggs. Or you can say that "nothing" exploded and chickens formed from that explosion.

ummm wtf explosion.... wtf? never heard of evolution??? LOL

[Spirit]

ummm wtf explosion.... wtf? never heard of evolution??? LOL

Yes, I have heard of evolution. However, please explain to me why we stopped evolving? If we evolved from something else, why are we not still evolving? Did "evolution" finally decide humans were perfect and needed no more evolving?

[Ivramire]

Who said we've stopped evolving?


For all we know, humans in a couple hundred years may be something entirely different from how we know them today.

[Spirit]

According to “science” homo sapiens have been around for 400,000 years. If homo sapiens have not evolved in over 400,000 years, I find it hard to believe that in another 100 years or so, we will evolve into something else.

[Ivramire]

In the scale of things, 400,000 years isn't really any time at all. I'd note that the most rapid development occured relatively recently, before that length of time people lived relatively similar ways of life reducing the need for adaptation.


Why fix what isn't broken :P


I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable about this kind of thing, so I can't exactly spout off what meagre knowledge I've gleaned off textbooks and the odd documentary or two. Only other thing that comes to mind that might be relevant are the changes and ways people's body's have adapted to correspond to the areas in which they live. Not exactly enough to constitute a different 'species' but enough to make a difference all the same. Hair type/ skin-color/ body-structure development etc. that a particular people develops to adapt to the environments they find themselves in.