[Conor Friedersdorf]
Literally.
People are always using the chicken/egg question as shorthand for situations where it's impossible to determine what actually came first.
But if you believe in evolution, it's clear that once upon a time there were two animals that we wouldn't quite consider chickens, that those not-quite-chickens mated, that an egg was laid, and that out of that fertilized egg hatched the first animal that meets whatever our definition of chicken is.
In other words, the egg came first.
Why isn't it possible that our two not-quite-chickens gave birth to a non-egg-borne animal that would, itself, go on to lay eggs?
Imagine a scenario where the *only* difference between the two proto-chickens and the actual chicken was that the proto-chickens did not lay eggs. Why couldn't they have birthed a mutant (the modern chicken) who simply had the egg birthing gene?
Because reproducing by laying eggs is far too complicated to have evolved in one generation. It would be like a fully functioning arm or eye magically appearing. Evolution works through small changes; it can't just magically produce something that complex.
So the argument is that proto-chickens necessarily laid eggs. That certainly seems likely to me, but is it certain? Is there a way to measure complexity? What is too complex for one mutation? From what base do you reason upon this?
If I non-chicken laid an egg out of which hatched a chicken, do we call that egg a chicken egg? Or is the egg laid by that first chicken the first chicken egg?
I must disagree. I read this somewhere and no longer remember where, but I've never heard a better analysis of the chicken/egg problem:
In the course of evolution from non-chicken to chicken, one of two things happened. Either a non-chicken laid a chicken egg (in which case the egg came first), or a chicken was born from a non-chicken egg (in which case the chicken came first).
In truth, of course, life is not so binary. But no I don't think the problem is solved.
This is somewhat arbitrary regardless. If I understand evolution you don't have a discreet moment where you can say of one specimen "a ha it's a chicken" while its parents are proto-chickens. You have more of a fuzzy-era of several generations where chickens emerge. (Or ducks or platypuses or whatever) Also "egg" is sometimes meant to mean the whole thing, including the shell. The DNA sequence that results from the mating of the proto-chickens would, I believe, come before that.
Still the statement "chicken or the egg" is potentially ambiguous in other ways. Taken on its own "The egg" came first because egg-laying insects clearly predate chickens.
Mondai Oyaji did a better job in some ways, kudos.
Is this what happens when libertarians try to think about science?
So the argument is that proto-chickens necessarily laid eggs. That certainly seems likely to me, but is it certain?
Yes. Chickens are birds; birds lay eggs. The immediate ancestor of the chicken must itself have been a bird; therefore it laid eggs.
To the extent that you can set an arbitrary boundary, Conor is correct; the egg comes first because an egg is either a chicken or not; it can't change into one if it isn't one already because the egg is one stage in the life cycle of a chicken. You can't change your species in the middle of your life.
Either a non-chicken laid a chicken egg (in which case the egg came first), or a chicken was born from a non-chicken egg (in which case the chicken came first).
If a chicken comes out of it, it is by definition a chicken egg. It may not have been laid by a chicken, but it was a chicken egg.
I imagine going from live births to laying eggs would require hundreds.
Not to mention, you're omitting the step between oviparous and viviparous birthing - marsupialism.
And what's this "if you believe in evolution" business? Regardless of whether you believe in it or not, it happened. And if you believe in creationism, you must believe that God made chickens like he made everything else - as fully-formed adults, so the chicken must have come first in that nonsense worldview.
Actually, it depends on your philosophical account of vague predicates. Sounds like you're assuming epistemicism, the view that there's always a precise cutoff. This view does have its supporters, but it's definitely controversial.
Well since the question never specifies that we're talking about chicken eggs, the correct answer is that various things (fish, reptiles, proto-birds) were laying eggs several million years before chickens, so *of course* eggs came first.
Unless you're a creationist, and then it's pretty clear that God made the first chickens pre-grown.
Tour de force, Chet.
Your post does seem to contain a concession, probably correctly, that life begins at conception.
"Regardless of whether you believe in it or not, it happened." Chet
TR: Don't get uptight, it's just a way of speaking.
People will sometimes say "belief" even in some cases of fact or widely accepted ideas. Like "If you believe in objective reality" or "if you accept the scientific method."
It's like me. I would say "if you believe in God" even though I know your belief or disbelief is irrelevant. God exists, he really doesn't need your belief or interest to exist. If I accepted the reverse premise, God does not exist, it'd be roughly the same. In that case your (not specifically meaning you) belief or disbelief would not make God any less unreal.
This post, and the comments, pretty much misses the point. The chicken/egg metaphor is usually misused, I agree. But this is not a scientific question, or at least not of the sort people here think it is.
The property of "being a chicken" is a vague predicate. Other examples of vague predicates are baldness and fatness. There are several philosophical positions about vagueness. One says there is in fact a determinate dividing line but we don't/can't know where that line is. Another says that there in inherent indeterminacy in the status of borderline cases.
The chicken/egg issue is only scientific insofar as science can tell us whether being a chicken is in fact a vague property, and if there is any way for us to find out the dividing line. Most are skeptical that science can help us much on the former. And the rest is strictly one's philosophical view of vagueness.
This post, and the comments, pretty much misses the point. The chicken/egg metaphor is usually misused, I agree. But this is not a scientific question, or at least not of the sort people here think it is.
The property of "being a chicken" is a vague predicate. Other examples of vague predicates are baldness and fatness. There are several philosophical positions about vagueness. One says there is in fact a determinate dividing line but we don't/can't know where that line is. Another says that there in inherent indeterminacy in the status of borderline cases.
The chicken/egg issue is only scientific insofar as science can tell us whether being a chicken is in fact a vague property, and if there is any way for us to find out the dividing line. Most are skeptical that science can help us much on the former. And the rest is strictly one's philosophical view of vagueness.
Chet said: "Is this what happens when libertarians try to think about science?"
No need to be a dick, I was just asking questions. I think I made it pretty clear that I didn't know what I was talking about.
Thanks to the poeple who answered without being jerks.
No animal ever gave birth to an animal of a different species. There exists an unbroken chain of parents and offspring connecting todays chicken's back billions of years to the common ancestor of all birds. The only reason we can identify an individual organism as a member of a unique species called a chicken, rather than a pigeon or a hummingbird, is that it's ancestors have died. The chicken/egg paradox emerges as a result of our attempting to assign discrete categories to what is in fact a continuous spectrum.
Nonsense, ao. "No animal ever gave birth to an animal of a different species" presumes a non-arbitrary definition of species. But, as any look at the species question will show, humans are perfectly capable of assigning arbitrary categories. Species is no more special than "planet" or "race" in that regard.
"billions of years to the common ancestor of all birds." ao
TR: I agree with some of what you said, but birds have not been around "billions of years." One billion years ago there doesn't seem to have even been much in the way of multicellular life.
Chickens evolved from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs laid eggs.
Each step in the unbelievably long series of mutations that transformed a small omnivorous dinosaur into a chicken took place in the egg.
Hence, the egg came first.
Figured that one out in sixth grade. You should've seen me trying to explain it to my teacher back then.
The trouble is, it's a bit ridiculous to talk about a point where a parent is a member of a given species, but its child is of a different one. Any point you choose is going to be arbitrary. Sorities, blah blah blah. Consider ring species.
Chuck Norris traveled back in time and wanted an omelet. Therefore the egg came first.
I've been saying this for years!
Here's hoping this is put to bed by the next decade. To be replaced with the following:
What came first, supply or demand?
If we're just talking about generic eggs, clearly eggs came first, many many millions of years before the Earth ever saw its first chicken.
If we're talking about chicken eggs, then, Conor, I think your certainty indicates a lack of imagination and thoughtfulness.
I will read the writings of people I disagree with, so long as he or she seems thoughtful and imaginative.
I will not read the writings of someone who smugly throws around baseless assertions as fact. Assuming you do not change your ways, you will probably have a great future as a Rush Limbaugh-style blatherer.
"But if you believe in evolution..."
Isn't the whole chicken/egg thingy a proxy for the creation/evolution argument? If you believe that God created the earth in 7 days then the chicken came first. If you believe in evolution then the egg came first as described in the post.
Perhaps I am reading too much into it.
I don't dispute that, I guess. If we want to talk about the life cycle of an individual organism conception is the rational place to start.
If you want to know how I reconcile that with being pro-choice then you'll just have to wait for Megan (or her guests) to start an abortion thread for me to troll.