What came first?

[shazzabell]

The chicken or the egg?

[crimbo]

The egg!

Dinosaurs laid eggs before chickens were invented.

Crimbo

[Kay]

So where did the dinosaurs come from Crimbo?

[Noweia]

The egg - An chicken has to hatch from the egg, but it wasn't necessarily a chicken that laid the egg!

Think about it this way: A Fresian cow may give birth to a Hereford-cross calf - the calf isn't a Fresian, but it's mother was.  Over several generations with crossing with other breeds and you have an entirely new breed that looks nothing like the original Fresian!  Give it many more years and speciation could occur! 

[Noweia]

Just an idea, it's what I always argue anyway!!! :)

[Octavius]

This qustion is easy, as an egg cannot exist without a being to produce it, it is quite obvious that the chicken came first, the real question is what did the chicken evolve from to produce an egg.

[IndieSinger]

Octavius - the "chicken" that laid the first chicken egg wouldn't have been what we would now call 100% chicken. Gradually, through evolution, the contents of the eggs being laid got more and more chicken-like. Eventually, one bird, which, by whatever parameters you want to use, was 99.99r% "chicken" laid an egg, which contained something we would call 100% chicken. So the egg came first.

[Octavius]

It must have been a blinkin surprise to the not quite chicken then!  I bet there was a paternity fight in that household.

[Merlin]

Look at the first answer from Crimbo and think about it.

Reptiles laid eggs before chickens evolved. Eggs existed before chickens existed - they just weren't chickens' eggs!.

Sorted.

[IndieSinger]

But the point of the riddle is that it is implied that the eggs are chicken eggs.

[Insurgent]

I would say the chicken, why? because the egg had to be laid.

It's the old evolutionist vs creationist argument.  Personally I don't buy the evolutionist argument of something coming from something else and eventually back to nothing.  That's what the question comes down to in it's simple form.  We are either created by something or by nothing and it's simple impossible to come from nothing, think about it.

Even the big bang theory would require something to trigger the bang.  what is that something? God.  Whatever the question it all eventually comes back to god being the spark. The cause and effect, the action and the reaction.

Everything in nature examined closely without bias points to a creator and a larger design.  Science or man can not even explain why we are alive. What makes our hearts beat, what triggers the spark and eventually stops it.

The answer simply is god, it began and it will end with him.

[GypsyCat9]

In nature, living things evolve through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote. Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken. Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.

[GypsyCat9]

In nature, living things evolve through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote. Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken. Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.

[dwoodley]

Well the egg's smoking a cigarette and the chicken's looking frustrated.

So I say the egg came first.

[anthomson]

If God is the spark of everything - what sparked God. You have just moved the problem. Either way something has always existed be it God or the energy required to create the Universe . Besides science is quite happy with the concept of creating something out of nothing (0=1+(-1)). Particles pop in and of out existance all the time.  Evolution  does not create something out of nothing. It is an unthinking process that creates order out of chaos. As for the chicken and egg I would say neither come first. If a genetic mutation gave rise to the first chicken (slightly different from its its egg laying non-chicken parents)  it will have hatched from the first chicken egg - the egg by definition being a container that contains a unhatched chick.

[octavedoc]

The first and second law of thermodynamics taken together imply the existence of "creation" as an inevitable consequence. A tossed penny will most likely land head up or head down but there is a tiny, finite possibilty of it landing on its edge. In an infinite continuum this small possibilty assumes an absolute probabilty of 1 since infinity divided by any number is 1.

We are the penny that fell on its edge that's all. debating its unlikelihood and introducing the third party intervention of "God" only complicates the issue.

The egg comes first because the chicken develops from it. the original "egg" would have been a simple unicellular organism.

[Insurgent]

I agree anthomson that something has always existed, from my point of view that something being god.

Science may not have a problem with something coming from nothing, but that's only true if you choose to have science as your yardstick. Ironic that you use a concept (zero) invented by a god conscious nation (muslims), to argue god nonexistence.

How can an "unthinking process create order out of chaos". Surely it requires intelligence and consciousness to create order out of anything. Chaos without thinking would create further chaos.

octavedoc, from the tossed penny point of view we are not simply the coin that land on it's side but an infinite number of coins or coincidences landing or their side with impossible odds of that actually happening.

To you the concept of god may complicate the issue and therefore be discounted. The existence of a third party does not lend less gravitas to the argument.

I would refer to the Harun Yahya work on the subject:

Refutation of Darwinism
http://www.harunyahya.com/c_refutation_darwinism.php

Refutation of Atheism
http://www.harunyahya.com/c_refutation_atheism.php

All his work is available free @ www.harunyahya.com

[anthomson]

Hi Insurgent, I am not necessarily refuting God. I believe that it an individual's discision and I respect that. I can't prove God doesn't exist and I don't want to. However I can help people understand that science works fine without him and I don't like generalisations that say we can't explain life without him when I think we can. Evolution for example (unthinking order from chaos) is a beautifully simple process that we can actually observe happening around us. It uses three simple principles - reproduction, mutation and death.  Essentially mutation causes nature to try thousands of new variants of life. If they don't work out they die if they do they reproduce. The changes are very small but over a long period you end up with something very sophisticated which has been shaped by and will adapt to it environment. The universe is a more difficult concept to grasp, but similar. Assuming that we have an infinite amount of time to play with and maybe a near infinite number of universes in the multiverse, eventually you are going to get one that works out and will support life. Admittedly a universe that supports life might be very improbable, but not impossible, and over a long enough period it will actually become probable that a universe like our own will be created from very simple physical concepts.