Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Which came first?

Which came first the chicken or the egg? Whenever I hear this famous quandary I always think how much I don’t care. However when then someone explains how this is a deep metaphysical question. To which I must answer it is actually very simple. The way I see it is like a lot of things in life. People made it more complicated than it needed to be.

Simply put the answer is chicken.

My evidence?

1. The Bible: In the beginning of Genesis(New American Standard) god created swarms of living creatures and birds in the heaven. It also mentions that these animals will bring "after its kind". A term I take as to give birth to its own species. I suppose it could have been an egg first but I would think the good book would have said something about “seeds” or the “beginnings of life” coming first. I know some will not find the bible a credible source but I like to examine all available evidence so include it.


2. Evolution: Personally I’m not too sure about evolution but I can see the argument for theistic evolution. The theory of a bunch of random events and mutated species creating the biosphere that exists today that includes millions of diverse animals and plants and must be carefully balanced seems unlikely to me.

For the sake of argument (and to prove my point) we will take it as a fact. That means we are also left with the fact that an egg is always considered the same species as whatever laid the egg- fish, bird, etc. So it is not until the creature inside the egg hatches and matures can it be differentiated and defined as another animal. No matter what its parents were there had to be a first chicken.



3. My last piece of evidence the life of chickens and all birds. Just looking at hatchlings you can see how useless and pathetic they are. While chickens are some of the more independent with mother hens that do not directly feed chicks, instead leading them to food sources, the chicks are still dependent on the mother. Without the adult nesting and clucking it is unlikely chicks will hatch must less live. If it was up to a few solitary eggs there would not be any chickens today.



Luckily, since I enjoy many chicken dishes there are chickens today. Like I said at the beginning I really don’t care which came first. All that really matters to me is that I can eat both the egg and the chicken on the same day.

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