The Chicken or the Egg by J. Holme

An age old question and conundrum has finally been answered. What had seemed like some kind of eternal paradox has been shown to be only a myth, and it is so simple. 'What came first the chicken or the egg?' has been asked over a pint of beer, or of a curious child, millions of times over the centuries. 'Chicken ...' they might answer, '...because you need a chicken to lay an egg'. Ahha but where did the chicken come from. Well now the answer is found and no one can be asked again. The egg came first.

It is so simple, any evolutionary biologist will tell you that eggs evolved long, long before chickens were even dreamt of. For instance turtles, which have been around for 100s of millions of years longer than chickens, also use eggs in their reproductive cycle.

Ahhha you say, Mr. Clever Philosopher, you have misunderstood the question entirely. It is not just any egg that has to be proven the former, it is a chicken egg only that counts. The question should really state 'What came first the chicken or the chicken egg?'.

Right let us really define the question. With chicken we mean the common farmyard animal, pieces of which add substance to our Friday night Vindaloos, and with 'egg' we mean the egg that is laid by the female of that species? Then I say the answer is chicken. The chicken came first.

Oh brilliant you may say. Anyone could answer this question with two guesses, there are after all only two answers.

Ahha I would say but this is a different and altogether better defined question. Also some might say that chickens and eggs popped into existence simultaneously, if they did not believe in evolution by natural selection, but in the biblical account of creation, taken literally.

No, I believe in evolution, or at least something like the theory, and before you get really obscure I believe in linear time. In other words things that happened in the past, as we normally refer to it, happen 'before' things that happen in the present or in the future.

OK, I say, then let me take you back to the past to prove my claim. Way, way back we pass through the mists of time to a field long ago before the time of chickens.

Now you're getting facetious...

In fact just before chickens evolved. Down below we see on the plain two animals that look a bit like chickens but they are in fact their immediate ancestors in the evolutionary chain. We will call them Chickenosauruses.

Couldn't you be bothered even to do a little bit of research?

Just after having something to eat, and before settling down for the night, they decide to try to create another little Chickenosaurus.

Oh my, this is getting sordid.

But something is wrong ... as the sperm and egg meet there is a mistake that will be replicated in every cell. It will be no Chickenosaurus that matures within the Chickenosaurus-egg but a horrible mutant.

A chicken!?

Yes but from a Chickenosaurus-egg. In fact she is a hen who will go on to lay a chicken egg when she is mature.

Can we go back to the discussion on linear time, there really is no proof for it you know!?

THE END