Chicken and Egg: My Solution

Thought experiment: if we accept basic evolutionary theory, we can assume a priori that at some point there was a fertile proto-chicken bird, or rather two, but no chickens as such existed. These birds would be at the very edge of something that was close to but did not meet our externally imposed definition of "chickenhood," although they exhibited strong elements of "chickenness."

Normally, the proto-chickens simply bred and created more proto-chickens. But there must have a been, at some point, a small mutation, one where two proto-chickens bred, and whose offspring we would call, just barely, a chicken.

That chicken, the very first chicken, which is after all a mutant proto-chicken, came from that egg. But THAT egg did not come from any chickens. Instead, it's parents were two proto-chickens.

So you can get a just-barely-a-chicken egg from just barely not-chicken parents. In fact, that's what must have happened.

Therefore, the Egg came before the chicken.

The contrary possibility, that the chicken came first, is based only on our observations of chickens as they are, not as they must have come to be. The idea that the chicken came first must presume that chickens never evolved as a species, but simply came into existence, and this is not supported by evidence. The debate has heretofore presumed, incorrectly, a sort of eternal, platonic chickenosity.

I should add that there is an interesting ambiguity about the egg remaining: Is it a chicken egg, or a proto-chicken egg, which produces the first chicken? The best answer is probably both- it is an egg birthed by proto-chickens, and also an egg containing the first chicken.

P.S. In spite of my original research here, my Macarthur grant seems to be held up in the mail again.

The Sum of All Monkey Replies: What if "chicken-ness" resulted from environmental factors, turning on certain traits the resulted in a proto-chicken growing into a chicken instead? p.s. I'm stealing your grant.

My Response:

As far as I know, there are no examples of a new species emerging after birth from environmentally caused changes TO an individual, IN an individual. You might hang around the uranium mine, but it's your kid that grows into the race of atomic superpeople.

Chickenness- chicken-like characteristics- might emerge in an individual as new behavioral or biological characteristics from enviromental factors, but not I think chickenhood- the state of being a chicken, which I am assuming is a unique genetic condition. No environmental factor will change the biology so that the original proto-chicken becomes a chicken egg producing CHICKEN, although it did produce a chicken egg-producing PROTO CHICKEN.

But Hybridization of two related species happens often. As it turns out, chickens appear to be a hybrid of the Red and Grey Junglefowl: yes, proto-chickens! If the chicken is indeed a hybrid, as top genetic scientists are apparently busy proving, my case is verified empirically.