So which really did come first

[Mr. McD]

the chicken or the egg? I know the answer. Do you?

[CanuckAmok]

1. Egg.

Keeping in mind "Evolution", a bird one evolutionary step away from being a "chicken" would lay the egg which would hatch into the first generation of "chicken".

No?

Who's going to cry "FOWL" on my theory?

[JackSwift]

2. Egg

Birds were around and laying eggs long before they evolved into chickens. They eventually mutated enough to become what we call chickens, but each one of them came out of an egg. Anyone who thinks otherwise is cracked, and the yolk's on them. Eggcellent Smithers!

[Rocinante]

3. Check in with Gollum

that little fellow knows a lot.

[lazarus]

4. chicken

Because the chicken had to come before the egg could. (Okay, stupid sex joke. It was really the egg.)

[Caution]

5. The egg

for something to be considered genetically to be a chicken it has to have a certain DNA structure, according to evolution DNA mutates over time into the species we have now and those mutations occur during gestation, so therefore there was a parent proto-chicken at some point which mated with a proto-rooster, their offspring mutated into the chicken we know today and that final mutation wasn evolutionary leap forward for poultry. I wonder what it was? Better plumage leading to a reproductive super stud rooster? The Ability for a female chicken to double it's breeding capability? A better beak?

[nuxvomica]

9. "those mutations occur during gestation"

I thought mutations occurred before gestation. In fact, I thought they occurred prior to fertilization. :shrug:

[rock]

6. Maybe you don't realize the question is ambiguous

Let's look at the egg from which the first chicken was hatched. Now, is that egg a 'chicken egg'? Well after all, it produced a chicken. Well, then, is that egg a proto-chicken egg? After all it was layed by a proto-chicken.

You see when a noun modifies another noun, the relationship is not language specified. On the other hand an adjective modifying a noun has a specific relationship to that noun.

A good example is steel factory. If steel is an adjective, then the factory is made of steel (the relationship is determined). If steel is a noun, then the relationship is pretty much up in the air. True, the commonest used meaning would be producer of steel. But it really means, factory having an association with steel. In fact, this phrase (with the right emphasis to show this) can be a noun plus noun and mean the same thing as adjective plus noun.

Ah, I love English.

[toddzilla]

7. it has to be the egg

the egg forms around the developin embryo, so technically there is an egg before the embryo develops enough be a chicken.

[GabysPoppy]

8. The Catsup bottle

Before I order either eggs or chicken, if the diner doesn't offer catsup, neither will come to my table