h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For centuries, people have pondered a question far greater than any other. It parallels with some of the greatest philosophies of mankind, and I just have to ask

What came first, the chicken or the egg??

THE EGG CAME FIRST OTHERWISE HOW DID THE CHICKEN GET HERE LOL

indeed. Although if you believe in macro evolution or whatever it is called (evolution by leaps and bounds rather than gradual change) then then at some point there must have been a proto chicken which was the first to lay an egg. I wonder what it might have thought the first time

Bet it wasnt very amused!

A very misleading question in many ways.
IT all depends on how one views the question, and to what the 'chicken' and 'egg' are prescribed to be indicitive of.
Chickens, of course, evolutionarly are descendnts in a long line of aves, they being but one end point of this set of evolution.
From this view, and rather prosacically it would be easy to view any particular breed of chicken, and deduce that, at some point, its ancestor would have been hatched from an egg, in which the particular ova and sperm combination gave rise to the chickens particular form.
There are of course others, who, aside the 'chicken' per sai, or the 'egg' likewise, insist that it is an increasingly narrow view of evolution which, despite placing (and some would say deservidly) great importance on the chicken, removes some of hte gravitace from other lines of evolution.
One, such individual for example, would most probably draw our attention to the slime mold, whilst another, and indeed a colegue of the first, would explain, at some great detail and length and mind numbinly tedium, the vertues of studying fungi. After several hours of hearing such people expound their own particular favour for these organisms as replacements for the 'chicken' and 'egg', it may be possible, to discover, that without exception, non of it made any sense.
Taking this on board, and summising, and pressuming that for the desired 'end' 'chicken' and 'egg' provides a suitible 'means', and way of representing the larger, overall question, and as such is a suitible (yet as with all, flawed) model of the question.
Obviously, and as it may o rmay not have previously been stated, this does tend, largerly to ignore on the whole, the question itself of what indeed the question is.
Some, perhaps in exaustion, or exacerbation, or because they can't find a local pizza shop that dilivers on a Sunday night, have developed the logical conclusion of this quandry of teh question to the answer to its ultimate conclusion, this then, as according to the mathmatical 'chickenegg' formular (one of Einsteins least known works) to give a simple, eligent, answer.
This answer is, and many individuals have critisised it for this, simplistic, understandible, logical, numeric and, of course, it is:
42.

I am so looking forward to in a few years seeing an announcement on H2G2 that 2legs will no longer be posting as much as he has taken up a post as Secretary of State somewhere or ArchBishop of Canterbury. When that happens I will finally realise that life does, after all, make sense.

'life, don't talk to me abou tlife' Hmm perhaps I wasn't entirely opaque what i said, in essence was:
The question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, is essentially, the 'Ultimate question of life the universe and everything',
Therefore, the answer to
'what came first the chicken or the egg', is;
'42' I said some other stuff about a guy who thinks viruses are coming to take over the world, but even those who know the professor who was my supervisor at Uni probably wouldn't have recognized the description; it was particularly vague in order to protect certain members of the taxanomic kingdom 'eubacteria'.

I just wrote a really good reply but then the network went and I lost it as had to reboot. So you'll just have to imagine a really witty and interesting post from me. Nothing new there then

I can just imagine it maan.
It would be beautiful, real whitty, real clever, oh maan, now I'm real sad, cause I've got to imagine it, rather than reading it

ah, be glad. For even if I had, it would forever be in the shadow of the Art which is a 2Legs posting!

'not worthy!'
'not worthy!'

'not worthy!'

'not worthy!'
Such a positive and amazing compliment of the like never have I recieved,

Eggs were around long before there were hens to lay them. Fish 'lay' eggs, as do insects, as do various other forms of vertebrate and invertebrate life, all of which evolved long before birds did. So the egg came first.

Of course, I could refer to a greetings card I saw recently: Chicken and egg sitting up in bed, smoking. Egg has a satisfied smile on its face and chicken looks dissatisfied, saying 'Well, I guess that answers that question."

but, how did the chicken evolve into being if its egg didnt exist?

Because the creature that existed directly prior to the chicken in its evolutionary line, will have resulted in a particular genetic 'coming together' of Ova and sperm, which resulted in an egg that contained a chicken like creature; obviously over some time of evolution, the 'chicken' like creature turned out to be suited better than its predasesors to thrive in its particular environment/habbitat, because of which, offspring displaying 'chicken'-like characteristics would have been more likely to survive and bread, gradually pushing the predisesor of the chicken out of the enviornment, as they out competed it. therefore gradually, the chicken (as we know it today) came to pass... Ovviously in the case of the chicken, man (lower case 'm'', interveined, selectively breading chickens to achieve the desired results for our own benifit; chickens that laid more/better eggs, weren't too suseptible to disease etc...

I can't belive you people! your suposed to be thinkers of the outside box veritiy.

Look at the question, it is asking you, what would come first if each item was mutualy dependant, (checken) eggs need checkens and visa versa.

When I peer without going round and round at the whole it apears that the only anwser logicaly is that they BOTH must exist at the same time for EITHER of them to exist at all.

I do not mean this as a joke, I have worked this out.

-- DoctorMO --

dont you understand? thats too logical. i personally think it was a chicken who came first because of the whole god creating the world and all its animals and yadda yadda yadda...

That they both existed at the same time is too easy , so who made them, eh? eh? woooooooh...cosmiiiiiiic

(best have a bit of a lie down

Well, of course, taking it back far enough in evolutionary terms, both did exist symultainiously, as life almost certainly started out as RNA, this can be seen to be both the chicken and the egg. It is the chicken, or the lifeform, as it had biological activity, and it is the egg, as it had the potential to replicate and give rise to new biological enterties.

We seem to missing a rather large point here:

Dinosaurs laid eggs, and then evolved into birds.

Therefore, the egg came a long, long time before chickens were even thought of.

B

zzzZZZZOOOOOOOM!

*sound of technical type speak going over Queegle's head*