The Chicken and the Egg Dilemma

Jack has solved the mother of all Dilemmas, "Which is first, Chicken or the Egg ?". He says,"Whichever is ordered first comes first !".

I was about to hit the sack, when my cell beeped indicating the arrival of this message. Now, that's funny ! But the question raised in the joke, continued to linger in my brain. As is the case with any such intriguing Questions, the cerebration has begun -- Which is First, Chicken or Egg ?

Theology always has the simplest and most comfortable of all answers. Almost all religious doctrines advocate the creationist theory. God has created chicken out of the blue, and it began laying eggs; the same way god has created Adam and Eve, the great-great..great grandparents of the entire human race.

But we skeptics cannot accept theories so obvious. We need rational inferences drawn from complicated set of facts and observations. And the best scientific theory to base upon is the Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

Theory of Evolution states Evolution is a process by which novel heritable traits arise in populations and are passed on from generation to generation, and over time, the traits that help the organism reproduce in greater numbers than his peers gradually gain dominence in a population. It was a gradual and complicated process that spread across millions of years. Organic Life forms started as miniscule water organisms, which evolved into fishes, and then developed lungs to become amphibia, that later transmuted into reptiles and birds, one of which happened to be a wild fowl bird, domesticated by man as the hen.

Now, there are two ways in which Evolution can be used to answer this question, one concluding that the chicken is first and the other that egg is first. But both arguments follow the similar lines of reasoning.

A Case for Chicken

Let us say that there exists a wild fowl bird that is not exactly chicken. In order to adapt to the changing environment, one( or some ) of the birds might have mutated into a different species developing certain new attributes alien to the original species, and losing a few inherited characteristics. These birds are the first hens, the primitive ones. When these birds lay eggs, the hatched chicken inherits the evolved or modified DNA of their parents. These chickens represent the original species much lesser and acquire more and more new qualities, that defines the birth of new species. These multiply and evolve into the modern chicken. So, the first chicken being the mutated birds which set off the new species, we can conclude that Chicken is first.

A Case for Egg

The non-chickens or the pre-chickens, whatever u call them, mated to form a cell or zygote, which gives rise to the offspring. Due to certain mutations that happened during the fusion and transformation of the Zygote, the DNA might have been altered in an unexpected way. The zygote divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. Thus the mutated zygote produced the new species, the first true chickens.Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.

Both arguments sound good. Whichever you accede to depends on the kind of belief you espouse. If you believe that mutations occur after the birth of an organism, in order to help it adapt to the new demanding circumstances, then Chicken is first. But, If you agree with me, that once the DNA is defined in the zygote it doesn't alter, then the Egg came first.

Whatever be the case, we should be happy to have such a nice bird, that resulted in a variety of delicious dishes.

P.S The above information has been collated from various sources on the Net.