The chicken vs. the egg: let the battle begin; loser gets eaten
I've gotten over my extreme rage over blogger.com over losing my post, and have decided that since I have nothing to post about, I will start talking about random bits of deeper thoughts involving life (I dare not call it philosophy because I'm not well enough schooled in it and aren't smart enough really). Feel free to run away while you can people, and for those who are brave/bored enough to read on, make sure you input your thoughts about the topics as they come up...and abuse would not be appreciated but if you must...
Anyway, the first thing that came to mind was the age old question of what came first: the chicken or the egg. Well, the obvious thing to say is who cares because they are equally delicious and succulent and full of proteins...mmm...*muffled sounds of eating*...
Well, first to define some premises. You see, it is hard to define the point at which we start calling a chicken a chicken. Because inside the egg the chicken would already have started the develop. Can we at that stage call it a chicken? Because as you can see it would render the egg obsolete. Well, for the sake of keeping this argument going we'll say that the chicken is defined as being that creature which has already hatched from its shell.
Okay, moving on, the chicken as that known today would have been born of non-chicken parents, and was merely an evolved (that is, mutant) form of its parents. By this argument the egg has to have come first. Being the male chauvinist pig that I am, I will also state that the first chicken hatched was also a male, as males can mate with many females and hence make lots of little chickens to populate the chicken world.
On a side note, evolution sure is an awesome thing isn't it? How such little changes over time could produce such variety and stark differences in the world's organisms...wonder if there ever will be some critter that is both plant and animal...such as a wooden chest like creature that walks on many little legs and which can store your items...returning your clothes washed and ironed...maybe it's time to pull out my Little Mad Scientist play kit...although after happened with that criminal I modified and brought back to life, I don't know if playing around with living things is such a good idea. But that's all the fun of being a mad scientist! Dang...
To be continued...
Anyway, the first thing that came to mind was the age old question of what came first: the chicken or the egg. Well, the obvious thing to say is who cares because they are equally delicious and succulent and full of proteins...mmm...*muffled sounds of eating*...
Well, first to define some premises. You see, it is hard to define the point at which we start calling a chicken a chicken. Because inside the egg the chicken would already have started the develop. Can we at that stage call it a chicken? Because as you can see it would render the egg obsolete. Well, for the sake of keeping this argument going we'll say that the chicken is defined as being that creature which has already hatched from its shell.
Okay, moving on, the chicken as that known today would have been born of non-chicken parents, and was merely an evolved (that is, mutant) form of its parents. By this argument the egg has to have come first. Being the male chauvinist pig that I am, I will also state that the first chicken hatched was also a male, as males can mate with many females and hence make lots of little chickens to populate the chicken world.
On a side note, evolution sure is an awesome thing isn't it? How such little changes over time could produce such variety and stark differences in the world's organisms...wonder if there ever will be some critter that is both plant and animal...such as a wooden chest like creature that walks on many little legs and which can store your items...returning your clothes washed and ironed...maybe it's time to pull out my Little Mad Scientist play kit...although after happened with that criminal I modified and brought back to life, I don't know if playing around with living things is such a good idea. But that's all the fun of being a mad scientist! Dang...
To be continued...
ranted by Wayland at
12/02/2004 10:41:00 pm
5 Comments:
Well well well! At last a CHALLENGING post to read. That one actually made me think...and have the re-read everything about three times to check I understood.
But anyway as you requested I'll give you my thoughts on this lovely post.
The title's great! I like it! Chicken...egg...mmmmmm...eaten...
Ok first real comment on the matter - you said it yourself: the obvious thing to say is who cares. Well um I don't particularly care but ok I'll tell you what I think.
We were discussing earlier how it's difficult to define what is "chicken" and what is "egg" language being the arbitrary thing that it is. In fact, I don't remember where, but either I read somewhere or someone told me that language is one of the main barriers to philosophy and open thinking. And this is a classic example. Ok I have more to say on this matter but I need to organise my thoughts so To be continued...
Counter-ranted by
JingleBells at Thursday, December 02, 2004 11:26:00 pm
Actually, this question is more anthropological than evolutionary, since the chicken (Gallus domesticus) didn't exist until its domestication around 2000 BC in Indochina. The first chicken came from the first chicken egg, which was laid by a red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). Whether you argue creation or evolution, the fact that humanity predates and is responsible for the speciation of chickens from red junglefowl should lay the "chicken or the egg" question to rest. From an evolutionary perspective, this answer holds for all species: the first member(s) of any species were the offspring of another very similar species, i.e. evolution argues that the egg always comes first. From a creationist perspective, this answer is anomalous, since all species that predate humanity originated as adults around 4004 BCE, i.e. creationism argues that the red junglefowl came before the red junglefowl egg.
Counter-ranted by
Anonymous at Friday, December 03, 2004 12:23:00 am
Cool, 'philosophy' (well, you didn't wnat to call in philosophy)! Well, since I'm allergic to eggs, I'd like to say the chicken loses, so that I get to eat it! ^_^
Like I did for my physics project (on the dangers of radiation), I'm going to turn to Godzilla - like that last person said, it doesn't only apply to chickens. I don't know how the original Godzilla came to be, but let's go with the basic radiation -> mutation thing (argh, horrible reminder of pointers - sorry, it's a c thing). Godzilla laid some pretty huge eggs, and if a little reptile thing is going to try and lay an egg that big to give birth to the first Godzilla, I'm thinking it's going to be a bit painful... so chicken wins!
Then again... where did the chicken come from? I haven't done any bio since VCE, and that was two years ago, so I might not have this completely right, but only mutations in germ cells will pass on to offspring, so suddenly mutating into a chicken won't help unless you can pass that trait (the chicken-ness) to your offspring. So if some bird lays and egg, and that egg had come from a mutated cell, or something happened to the egg to mutate the cells inside it, then that's how you'd get the chicken.... so the egg would have to come first (that is, if you're defining the mutated germ cell as an egg).
Counter-ranted by
Fodder at Friday, December 03, 2004 9:20:00 pm
hmmm....interesting post although i'm not really into philosophy or deep thinking or whatever u'd like to call it. well, i hope both the chicken and the egg lose so i get to eat both....yummy! (so they lose and i win!)
And how do you know that the first chicken hatched was a male? I mean it could have been a female, as females can also mate with many males and hence make lots of little chickens to populate the chicken world. well anyway, i believe that it was a female chicken that was first hatched. and that has already been proven by scientist margaret so u better believe it :P
Princess
Counter-ranted by
Anonymous at Monday, December 06, 2004 8:50:00 am
umz... first time to WL's blog (u can thank Jing for introducing me here in my state of helpless boredom) and i gotta say the first blog i saw (this one) was surprisingly interesting. Although u claim not to b phiolosophical i can see potential in u WL to become a brilliant eminent lawyer with your, at times, twisted and circular (hahaha... just a word of warning: neva accuse a lawyer of that unless u want a lawsuit... it's the ultimate insult) but always convincing reasoning. Alas, the law world is deprived of his intelligence and humour, for his chosen profession is medicine, the reason of which still eludes me. I must also comment on your very amusing yet creative quotemania game, and also that incredibly important disclaimer (now ur immune from most negligence cases, u'll be glad to know hahaha)
Anywayz, keep up the interesting blogs for i have become an addicted fan =P.
Waiting for the next post already,
always,
Jian.
Counter-ranted by
Anonymous at Monday, December 06, 2004 1:50:00 pm
Counter-rant
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