The Chicken Or the Egg? Part Deux! (A history and example)

Hi again,  I got some interesting and well thought out responses and general interest on my Chicken or the Egg post and thought it was worthy of a follow up. I really appreciate those who took the time to read the whole post, and thank those who commented on it. I changed around my colour scheme due do to the after images it was causing, although for my next post on optical illusions and seeing not being believing I may change it back. Anyway, I did some further research on the topic in light of the comments I got and have to say I generally agree with my first post.  That being said I do have some more information, including the historical background of the question and some responses to a couple of criticisms to post here. (Anyone who doesn't care for the history, feel free to skip the next three paragraphs.)

The question first goes back much further than  I thought it would, and I guess everything really is a footnote to Plato, because that's the era that the question first Arises. I found the quote about it from Aristotle who says that, "If there has been a first man he must have been born without father or mother -- which is repugnant to nature. For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an egg." The article goes on to say that, "The same he held good for all species, believing, with Plato, that everything before it appeared on earth had first its being in spirit. (Isis Unveiled I, 428.)" That article can be found here  if your interested.

This is an important pre-evolution understanding. The bird and the egg seem co-dependent, so there can be no first, so everything must be eternal. Then creationism came and in Genesis 1:20 God said that, "'Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.' ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good."

So the answer historically changed from there being no first chicken or egg, to there being birds created before the egg. God created the bird first, and I assume the chicken is one of the birds that flies above the earth and a bird according to its kind.

Then with the Origin of Species Darwin worked out (with a contribution from pigeons and finches) that animals can adapt to there surroundings; Watson and Crick found DNA and the chicken and the egg took a decidedly different look The look that I described in my first post, that had some contentions.

 I have been criticized by some posts saying that of course that is the answer, but it isn't a sexy answer to the question. While it may be boring, there are many people who, wrongly I think, postulate the egg as the answer, and in doing so really belittle the process. They elevate the individual egg over the steps that create the distinction between things.

For instance states that "MatheMagic- I think you're reasoning it out wrong: any step of rearranging the DNA takes place at the 'egg' stage. It is difficult to define the moment at which species occur, fine, but like any taxonomist you must set some arbitrary criteria (lets say the primordial "chicken" would share 99.00000000% of the DNA seen in chickens today)."

My response to this while the egg is the place of change this question isn't like a court of law that must make a sentence upon a guilty verdict (Any court sentence is an arbitrary but necessary decision). This is a question that can be fairly answered without having to put an arbitrary stick in the mud. The question as given is a false dichotomy, the answer isn't in the choice of possibilities and I think that I can make my point with the a news article.

The article is on how people in England having bird feeders (along with warm winters) has created a separate breeding population for Blackcap's. It is a pretty short and interesting article and I will try to summarize it, but you can find it here if you are interested.   Anyway, there are two populations of blackcaps have a different wintering area and the ones that go to England are able to get back earlier than the other population. This ability lets them breed earlier and has created two separate breeding populations. That is all it really takes to create a split in the species. It is noted that, "The team also observed differences in the birds' beaks, wings and plumage.", but don't get any hopes up on a new chicken coming soon as, "Dr Schaefer pointed out that the evolution of a new bird species, 'could take 100,000 to a million years'."

There are changes that take place, but no single great change is the defining thing that separates one thing from another. Darwin showed this in the Origin of Species when he himself pointed out the problems and folly's with trying to define the differences between a species and a variety and those terms may be highly contested.

What the Blackcap really shows is that no one egg can even be arbitrarily shown to be 'the first chicken.' It may take 100 000 years for there to be a chicken from the egg, that is one of the reasons why people who deny evolution are able to say that well species can change, but no new species have ever come into appearance. (Please don't make this a topic, I know that species can evolve at different rates and the populations may be some and the changes could come quickly in an evolutionary sense).

I could site literally hundreds of people, who like MatheMagic, that state that the egg is the correct answer, but all those people are really putting the individual ahead of the process. It comes up in the philosophy of mind often when trying to define where consciousness is what it is. Many people have given different answers, but the answer that I think fits best is that consciousness, like evolution, is a process of that involves different things and trying to encapsulate those things in any one term really fails to show the beauty in the inner-workings that are going on.

Thanks for reading,

The Moral Skeptic

Which Came First the Chicken or the Egg?

From former classmates to Ian McShane's character in "Kings" a declaration of the answer to the age-old question of the chicken and the egg has been presented as proof of the answerer's intelligence. The answer is presented as if it was glaringly obvious since the time of Darwin. The egg came first!

Within a few seconds, a complete explanation is given that animals are changed through chance mutation of DNA during the conception part of the formation of the animal.  Also to their point is that animals aren't changed in any lasting way by the environment except through their being less able to reproduce through a lack of fitness to their surroundings. For that reason, the egg that clearly came before the chicken.

While this may look like a totally convincing answer that contains all the fundamental  understandings of Darwinism, there does remain a problem unforeseen by the person giving this type of answer. This problem can be brought to light through asking a few specific questions about the chicken and egg dilemma.

The telling question is if the egg is the answer then what is giving birth to the egg? The egg must come from some creature that is a non-chicken that gives birth to a chicken, but this is not how the process works. Changes from parent to a child produce gradual changes and it takes many generations to cause any great amount of change, even in the state of a punctuated equilibrium.

Verities of chickens could be made from the egg, but the egg is never able to be distinct enough to be called a new species. This is where the chicken or the egg question breaks down into an understanding of how new species are defined.

The problem should now be easy to see. The question of 'What came first the chicken or the egg?' is a false dichotomy. The answer is that it is a process that creates the differences between the parent and offspring where there is no sudden appearance of a new 'thing' being created. The young who are different have to out-compete the other young where those changes did not occur. This may cause the extinction of the unchanged and if that happened, along with enough other changes then possibly there would be the creation of a new species. This new species is then something that could be defined as a 'chicken'.

The question of 'What came first the chicken or the egg?' fails to understand how biology works and anyone who attempts to answer by saying chicken or egg has committed an error even before they state their reasoning. The creation of a new animal doesn't happen overnight, or in one generation, it happens over time.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic