GamblersGrin Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 duh, its science! http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2196880,00.html How two philosophers and a farmer cracked an age-old conundrum By Alan Hamilton It was the egg that came first, not the chicken, according to a study of the poultry pecking order IT IS the ultimate conundrum of the poultry world, debated by generations of scientists, academics and philosophers. Which came first: the oval thing with the hard shell, or the dim-witted, toothless bird that clucks as it crosses the road for no obvious reason? Now two of the best brains in the land (and a chicken farmer) claim to have solved the catch 22. The answer, it has been decreed, is the egg. NI_MPU('middle');And here follows the science, expressed as far as possible in terms a reasonably educated hen would understand. Genetic material does not change during an animal’s life. Therefore, the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must first have existed as an embryo inside an egg. Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, who was put to work on the dilemma, said that the pecking order was perfectly clear: the living organism inside the eggshell would have the same DNA as the chicken that it would become. “Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg,” he said. “So I would conclude that the egg came first.” David Papineau, an academic specialising in the philosophy of science at King’s College London, concurred. In his view, the first chicken came from an egg, which, he claims, proves that there were chicken eggs before there were chickens. Here, the science moves out of reach of the hen-brained. Professor Papineau maintained that people were mistaken if they argued that the first chicken egg was a mutant produced by non-chicken parents. “I would argue that it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it,” he said. “If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg.” It is perhaps best at this difficultjuncture to gloss over the fact that a kangaroo is a marsupial and does not lay eggs in the way that chickens or ostriches do — or all. Rather, it gives birth to a joey. Also, a kangaroo bouncing around the Outback would be highly unlikely to come across an ostrich with which to attempt such an unlikely union. These overgrown birds inhabit an altogether different continent. Charles Bourns, a chicken farmer and chairman of the trade body Great British Chicken, also favours the egg argument. He said: “Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs.” If they had been around so long, and were presumably missing their best-before date stamp, they would have been best avoided. The “chicken v egg” debate was prompted by the Disney film studio to mark the release of its movie Chicken Little on DVD. But the learned discussion poses more questions than it answers. Creationists, for example, will argue that if God created Adam and Eve, he probably had a spare five minutes to knock up a chicken as well. Science still has many unanswered questions, such as what existed before space? What do you come to when you pass the restaurant at the end of the universe? If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a noise? And exactly which law of physics will allow Michael Ballack enough time away from the Chelsea playing field to soend £130,000 a week? But the biggest question of all remains unanswered: what laid that first egg, if it wasn’t a chicken? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaolinmasta Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 Who the fuck knows, it's evoloution son Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skullnbones Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 which came first the chicken or the egg i ate the chicken and then i ate his leg. thanks to this thread i will now have this beastie boys lyric in my head for the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Future Droid Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 yeah the line could become really blurred when taking evolution in account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HydrogenPeroxide Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 “If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched' date=' that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg.” [/quote'] haha, i can imagine this being said in some sort of monty python sketch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayabusa Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 fuck im not reading all that someone wanna give me like a two line summary or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeBee Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 I can do you one better, break it all down to one line "The egg came first" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flavicon Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 more fark content, I'm on to you :scowl: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Hasselhoff Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 i figured that shit out when i learned about evolution in like 9th grade. write an article about me motherfucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamblersGrin Posted May 26, 2006 Author Share Posted May 26, 2006 more fark content, I'm on to you :scowl: i do get many news articles from there. that place is better than most legit news services. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ckit Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 Neither chickens nor their eggs exist. It is a fabrication perpetuated by the Cuban government to spread fear of Avian Flu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 it's definitely an interesting philosophical and scientific question (i like the others listed at the end of the article..haha) and yeah, for me, a more pressing question is: what lies beyond the limits of the universe and if the universe was once really super small, what else was there? i'm thinking quantum physics will start cracking some of this shit in the next hundred years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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