Retro Blog: Which came first - The Chicken/Egg answer

Since time immemorial (or at least a very long time) people have asked the question: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”.

The question itself usually is used to say “no one really knows” much in the way that “Does the Pope wear a funny hat?” is used in place of “yes”.

I have given it some extensive thought though (apparently I have way too much time on my hands), and I believe that I have actually come up with the correct answer.

The best part of the chicken/egg answer is that it fits no matter whether you hold Judeo-Christian creation values or you are a staunch evolutionist (not that the two are mutually exclusive).

Anyway, the answer is …

… wait for it …

Do you hear the drumroll?

... here it comes ...

… the CHICKEN!

Ta-Da!

Wasn’t that worth the wait?

Oh, now you want me to back that up?

Fine, be that way.

Here goes ...

The Judeo-Christian

explanation:

Since you are probably familiar with the creation stories you know that God made man and woman. Not boy and girl, not differentiated fetuses, but ADULT people. I figure it follows that using the general creation philosophy that God would have also made ADULT chickens.

That holds up. Don’t you think?

The evolutionary theory:

(This part will be blacked out if it ever prints in Kansas. But hey, join the subversives and sneak a copy across the Kansas border!)

Okay, there is this theory that animals, including humans, started out as lower life forms and gradually became higher and higher life forms over millions of years due to climactic demands and physiological need.

That is about as succinct as I can be with that.

Anyway, life is supposed to have started in the water and spread and adapted across the Earth. Eventually some fish found the need to crawl out of the water and over long, long, long (probably deserves even more longs) time became just a huge variety of things including humanity’s forefathers.

… and yes, I am getting to the chicken …

Our ancestors eventually broke off into the Homo group starting with Homo habilus moving to Homo erectus, graduating through several more Homos, attaining Homo neanderthalensis then becoming the Homo sapiens you see driving down the streets today.

There are a long line of fossils spread higgledy-piggledyabout the Earth that support this argument.

During this process you would not have started a new classification until you could see the differences in an adult.

Back to the chicken.

There is this little lizard creature running around. Eventually his great, great (okay, I have no idea how many greats) grandchildren gets feathers.

Still not a chicken.

Sooner or later “Feathery” gets a beak and claws (or maybe the claws came before feathers or the beaks before claws—I don’t know, but you get the point).

My gist here is that “Feathery”, “Claw-y” and “Beakly” were not chickens as we know them.

Yes, one of them laid an egg that would actually become an adult chicken but it would have been a “Feathery”, “Claw-y” or “Beakly” egg and would not have been a properly different chicken until maturity.

Besides, it would take a chicken to lay a chicken egg.

So, once again, the CHICKEN came first.

I hope that this clears up at least one burning question in your lifetime. This is more than likely the only great mystery I will ever solve.

Unless I get any more clues on that missing sock thing...