Parentheses

This is something which I wrote a little bit ago, purely for fun.  Think of it as an exercise in defining and dividing, but this is (hopefully obviously) not to be taken very seriously, although I do think that I lay out the answer to the allegedly “age old question” quite well.

I’ve been thinking about the question, “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” People often throw this around as if it is some sort of eternal question that can’t ever be accurately answered, but the problem is, however, that the answer is ridiculously simple. So, here we go.

To begin with what is easiest, if somebody believes in creation, the answer is obviously the chicken came first, these people, however are not likely to actually think this question is difficult to answer, in their minds, it is plain that the chicken came first.

However, those who believe in evolution will perhaps find the question slightly more difficult to answer, as their presuppositions do not necessarily require a certain answer. In order to accurately answer the question, we must first further elucidate the question. “Egg” is a rather general term, but in this question, there are two specific ways that it can be taken. One, it can mean an egg of any sort, laid by any animal, as chickens are far from the only animals that lay eggs. The other option, obviously, is that the question is actually “which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?” In this interpretation, the egg is referring specifically to a chicken egg. We shall deal with these two interpretations separately, as the distinction is vital to finding the correct answer.

If egg is taken in a general sense of any animal’s egg, then the answer is, again, remarkably clear. As I understand it, unless it’s changed since I was younger, dinosaurs, or at least some kinds, were born from eggs. Again, as I understand it, according to evolution, dinosaurs were gone long before chickens were around. Thus, if egg is meant in a general sense, then, from an evolutionary viewpoint, the egg clearly came before the chicken.

Well, those two answers are fairly straightforward, which leads me to believe that the people that think the question is difficult must be interpreting in this third, and seemingly final, way. In this interpretation, “egg” is referring to a chicken egg specifically, not simply to egg as a means of bearing young. This question must also be further examined before it can be properly answered. Obviously, if one is going to answer the question, a definition of “chicken egg” must be available. Does it mean an egg which contains a chicken, or an egg which was laid by a chicken? These two different definitions will again determine whether the chicken or the egg came first, for obvious reasons.

In evolution, it is hard to draw lines between species as they change, or at least, if one assumes intermediate links, it would seemingly have to be difficult. However, at some point, an animal that was not a chicken, would have to become a chicken. If by chicken egg, we mean an egg which contains a chicken, then clearly, the chicken egg would come first. It would have been laid by some chicken-esque animal, that was not, in fact, a chicken. Thus, the chicken egg came before the chicken. If, however, by “chicken egg” one means an egg which was laid by a chicken, the answer is just as readily apparent, but the exact opposite. Again, this chicken, which was born of that-which-was-not-chicken, would lay an egg, and that egg would be a “chicken egg,” but the chicken would have come first.

Thus, in answer to the question “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” there are several ways of responding, all of which depend upon your beliefs and your definition of the question, to sum up:

1. A creationist: the chicken came first

2. An evolutionist, defining the egg in a general sense: the egg came first

3. An evolutionist, defining the egg in a specific sense, in which the chicken egg is the egg containing a chicken: the egg came first

4. An evolutionist, defining the egg in a specific sense, in which the chicken egg is the egg laid by a chicken: the chicken came first.

It seems to me that, for most people, option #4 is the most likely way they would define the question, because it simply makes the most sense that the chicken egg is the egg which is laid by the chicken. I say it makes sense because if one has an egg laid by a chicken which was not fertilized, and thus does not contain a chicken, one would still call that a chicken egg.