What came first - the egg or the chicken?
The answer from scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson/@neildegrassetyson
You've probably heard this question before, and all the possible explanations for each answer.
But what really came first: the egg or the chicken?
This centuries-old puzzle may finally have a definitive, science-based answer.
Let's start with the facts.
Domesticated chickens, as we know them, began to appear about 10,000 years ago.
So does that mean the egg came a little before the chicken?
Well, the real question you should be asking is - what is an egg anyway?
Many philosophers and Christians debated this question, such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and they based their answer on what is written in Genesis.
This means that, according to these philosophers, the chicken came first, since it is clearly written on the fifth day of the creation of the world: "And God said, Let the waters spawn, that a living soul may run, and a fowl may fly on the earth before the firmament of the heavens", this means that God created the chicken and not the egg .
But we live in the age of science, and we have long since abandoned the religious philosophers, who lived thousands of years ago.
So let's focus on the science.
According to the BBC Science Focus, science has an unequivocal answer: "Eggs are much older than chickens. Dinosaurs laid eggs, the first fish that emerged from the water laid eggs, and even the strange creatures that swam in the warm shallow seas during the Cambrian period 500 million years ago laid eggs."
This is an important point, especially since the original question does not specify which animal the egg should come from.
The zoologist who answered the question for the BBC added: "So the egg undoubtedly preceded the chicken"
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What is your answer?
What came before why?
the egg
the chicken
184 participants
So the ancient riddle has been solved?
Not really.
Because it is a matter of sophistication and therefore he continued his explanation: "Unless we rephrase the question like this: 'Which came before which, the chicken or the chicken's egg?'" Then the question arises - how do we define a chicken's egg and again we return to philosophy - is an egg laid by A chicken, or a chicken hatching from an egg?
He explains that the chickens we know today are in fact the same species as the male rooster, or the red wild rooster that lives in Southeast Asia, which about 10,000 years ago mixed with the sonnet rooster or the gray wild rooster in the domestication process.
The author of the article comes to the conclusion at the end: "But all this does not matter; at a certain point in evolutionary history, when there were no chickens yet, two birds that were almost - but not quite - chickens mated and laid an egg from which the first chicken hatched."
According to Professor John Brookfield, scientist, philosopher and Lullan, this means the egg came first.
According to him, the key to this ancient question lies in the fact that an animal's genetic makeup does not change during its lifetime.
Therefore, the first animal on earth that evolved into a chicken existed, earlier, inside an egg.
It is probable that the chicken embryo inside the egg had the same genetic load as the chicken it grew up to be.
Brookfield, an expert in genetic evolution, said that "therefore, the first living creature that can be clearly said to belong to the chicken species had to be an egg before there was a chicken. The egg came first."
Now it's up to you - if you are ready to call this egg a chicken egg - then the egg came first.
If not then the hen arrived first and the first hen's egg had to wait until the first hen laid it.
Did you understand?
It all depends on the question whether for you it is a chicken's egg or not.
That's the whole story.
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egg
Chicken