What came first, the chicken or the egg?

[RD]

lol chicken!
how wud the egg hatch without the chicken's warmth (can't remember what it's called...)? XP

INCUBATION!

[BA22]

Spirited sloth is correct

The changes to chickens we know today would have occured slowly and progressively in an isolated population, these are known as the steps to speciation

Our definiton of a species is a population that can mate to produce genetically viable offspring. The mutation rate of nuclear DNA is quite slow, and even then these mutations must occur in regions of DNA that actualy code for physical characteristics of that chicken. In short, it takes a long time.

My point is, the parental generation and progeny can still mate to produce viable offspring as they are still closely genetically related

Therefore they are still the same species and both chickens

Thus the chicken did, does and always will come before the egg

[Mao]

My point is, the parental generation and progeny can still mate to produce viable offspring as they are still closely genetically related

Therefore they are still the same species and both chickens

Thus the chicken did, does and always will come before the egg

ahh, we're getting somewhere:
where did the parental species come from? were they hatched from eggs?

i'm not disagreeing with you, but it's a question that goes in loop and will not stop...

[Collin Li]

Yeah, it depends on how you define the species. I think the egg came first, because there must be an arbitrary point where we mark the difference between the chicken and its previous state in the genetic transition (specialisation). That arbitrary point involves the older species laying the egg that leads to the chicken.

[asa.hoshi]

CHICKEN!!!!

[Mao]

Yeah, it depends on how you define the species. I think the egg came first, because there must be an arbitrary point where we mark the difference between the chicken and its previous state in the genetic transition (specialisation). That arbitrary point involves the older species laying the egg that leads to the chicken.

how many grains of sand make a pile? how many strands of hair make a man bald*? I really dont like the idea of an arbitrary point separating two things so closely related...

not fully bald, but bald enough to be called "bald".

[Collin Li]

Well, lets say the chicken evolved from a species called "gobbledegook." The transition between gobbledegook and chicken means that at some point, when we decide to recognise the new species (chicken), we have a gobbledegook's egg hatching into a chicken.

It's a necessary arbitrary point.

[Mao]

Well, lets say the chicken evolved from a species called "gobbledegook." The transition between gobbledegook and chicken means that at some point, when we decide to recognise the new species (chicken), we have a gobbledegook's egg hatching into a chicken.

It's a necessary arbitrary point.

here's a similar example:

u have a pile of sand, you remove the sand grain by grain, until you have 1 grain left
at which point does the pile becomes "non-pile"? how can you define such a point?
however, there also seem to be a necessary arbitrary point.

also, say a man has 10 strands of hair falling out every day, and no new ones are growing
at which point does he become bald? 1,000 strands? why not 1,001? however, there MUST be an arbitrary point...

i understand what you are saying, but the argument, with perfect viable logic, is absurd...
and genetically speaking, species are constantly evolving, DNA constantly changing. if we establish this arbitrary point at 50-50 gobbledegook vs chicken, then we must first define the arbitrary point of EXACTLY what is a precise chicken and gobbledegook DNA, and that cannot be defined by itself...

[Collin Li]

It's probably called a transition species. It doesn't matter, you can have millions of species along the way, but either way, it will be something that laid the egg that hatched into a chicken.

Your point about arbitrary points is challenging the semantics (the definition), which I already agreed it depended on.

Yeah, it depends on how you define the species.

If it's a semantic technical argument, I'm not interested, because it doesn't lead to anything, it's just a reorganisation of your starting axioms.

[BA22]

There is never a significant change in the genetic make up between one generation.

The reason being, if one progeny becomes so genetically incompatible with its parent to that it cannot produce fertile offspring (thereby becoming a new species) then it is lhighly likely that particular individual will be genetically incompatible with other individuals in the population and therefore unable to reproduce, it would die, and so to would this "new" species. Therefore the offspring that is able to mate with other individuals, will also be able to mate with those from the parental generation and will be the same species

Let me stress that we define a species as a population that can reproduce genetically viable offspring

To understand our characterization of a species, i'll outline the steps to speciation. Lets say we have Species A in a population. One day a group from species A makes a dangerous journey through a mountain range to a new habitat. No one from species A makes the same jouney ever again. This means the two groups have become geographically isolated. There will be no interbreeding between these two groups and they now have their own gene pools.

Over time the isolated group would observe changes in allele frequencies in that gene pool according to natrual selection, forming the chicken we know today. After these changes have occured over time, if a member was to cross the mountain range and attempt to interbreed, they would find each other genetically incompatible and unable to produce genetically viable offspring.

Back to the isolated group, as i said above, this changes would be slow and progressive, therefore individuals from progeny generations would be able to mate with individuals from the parental generation due to their being highly genetically similar.

. . .  (A]    B    [C)    D    (E]    F     [G) . . .

This is a very crude diagram. Each letter represents a generation. Changes to the genetic make up of a species occurs slowly enough that any letter in the same set of brackets can mate successfully. This is a constant of nature. As these changes occur very slowly the proceeding generation is always able to mate with individuals of the subsequent generation. Fitting in with our definition of a species, it follows that the chicken did, does and will always come before the egg

[Collin Li]

If one progeny becomes so genetically incompatible with its parent to that it cannot produce fertile offspring (thereby becoming a new species)

That fertile offspring came from an egg. The egg came before the chicken.

[BA22]

no, because somewhere along the line, chickens evolved from the same single celled organisms that every other creature did (that don't lay eggs)

My example shows that chickens specifically evolved from an isolated population. A new species cannot originate within a population, therefore the proceeding generation will always be able to mate with the subsequent one. I know i keep on repeating this point, but that means that are the same species. Therefore the chicken must come before the egg. No animal can produce offspring that is an entirely new species

[Collin Li]

Hm.. I see, I misread your post, and actually quoted the part of your post that was explaining how that mechanism doesn't work, LOL!

I still don't really get it though. So you're saying there is a species called the chicken, but it didn't originally lay eggs at first (since its parents didn't lay eggs)?

[Mao]

Therefore the chicken must come before the egg. No animal can produce offspring that is an entirely new species

however, if we were to define an arbitrary point where the gobbledegook became chicken, then that point must have occurred at the point of fertilization, given that, the egg came before the chicken, as the chicken is hatched from the egg, and the DNA is defined before the egg was hatched.

that is, if we define an arbitrary point...

[BA22]

nah i was refering to single cell organisms, or which all life stems

The names of species are immaterial to the arguement really. But yeh, along the line a species would have slowly arose that laid eggs, therefore the fist eggs would have been laid. Evolution is a slow process, and speciation occurs in its own set of circumstances. Just follow the basic rule that offspring are the same species as their parents (i know the exception to the rule any potential smart arses that will confuse this debate) and we could track this association back to when the ability to lay eggs evolved. The group that is the direct ancestor to the chicken could most likely lay eggs, but that ancestor is not a chicken