The Chicken and the Egg

Just in case you thought this might be a blog you'd be interested in following, you should know that this is post is where I'm probably going to lose your interest. Maybe you read my first couple of posts and thought "Well, I'll give this guy a chance; I know I like The Superhero, at least I know all the history. Maybe it'll be neat to see another perspective on their lives!".

While the topic is of this post is of great interest to me, I have no illusions about the rest of the world and whether or not they care about this type of thing. However, if you have a few minutes to spare, I encourage you to open your mind and let me take you on a tour of one of my favourite things to do.

I want to write today about logical thinking. I'm reading Outliers right now. The author spends some time profiling a man by the name of Chris Langan, who is remarkable in that he has one of the highest IQ's in the world. After reading about him I googled him and found a page in which he has a general Q&A with people who send him questions. After all, what could be better than sending your trickiest problem to one of the smartest guys in the world?

There's a variety of questions that people have people have sent in, from deep philosophical questions to trivialities like "What came first, the chicken or the egg?", which was sent in from a newspaper.

As I read this, I could almost read the mind of the reporter has he typed in the question:

Finally the chance the world has been waiting for! An answer to one of the life's unanswerable paradoxes! I'll either stump the mega-genius, or bring the world an answer to one of the most oft-asked and seldom-answered riddles of them all!

Before I tell you what the genius said, I'd like to point out a couple of things...

1) Before coming across this Q&A website, I've thought about this question and figured out the answer.
2) That night before going to sleep, I asked The Superhero the age-old question. She gave it about 10 seconds of thought, and gave the right answer.
3) I believe the answer to this question is available to anyone with a basic understanding of evolution and can apply a little bit of logic to the situation. By no means is this kind of thing relegated to the realm of super-geniuses and monks meditating for years in isolation. Unfortunately logical thinking is something that not very many people have a lot of practice with in day-to-day life.

So without further ado, here is the answer to the question:

First, is there a clear answer to the question? Well, I think it's clear that there must be an answer:

• Today, we have lots of chickens and eggs.


• There was a time in which there were no chickens or chicken eggs. The dinosaurs weren't squashing little chickens as they tromped around.


• Clearly we transitioned at some point between having no chickens or chicken eggs and having both.


• Since it's so tremendously unlikely that a chicken and a chicken egg were independently created at the instant in time, surely one of them came first.

So now the question is, do we understand how chickens and their eggs came into existence? We know a whole lot about evolutionary biology, but only the rudiments are required to figure out whether a chicken or a chicken egg came into being first.

A new species is created when one member of a species undergoes a genetic mutation in his/her reproductive cells; ie: sperm or egg in mammals. This member of the species reproduces and that genetic mutation causes a big enough change between the parents and the offspring that the offspring is declared a "new species".

So, the way chickens and chicken eggs came to be was the following:

• Whatever the direct ancestor or the chicken was (surely also an egg-bearing species), undergoes a genetic mutation, either through radiation or some other means.


• This member of the chicken-ancestor species mates with another member of its species, and produces the very first egg containing a chicken (ie: a chicken egg) that has ever existed on our planet. The egg has won one of the more famous races to existence.


• Shortly thereafter, the very first chicken emerges from said egg, coming in a very close second.

And that is the answer to what seemingly is the trickiest of questions. And we've known the answer since Darwin published On the Origin of Species back in 1859.