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which came first the chicken or the egg2007-11-24 17:26:51

do you know?!?

Answers:

Which came first - the chicken or the egg? "The chicken" came first - in the sentence of the question. If the question is phrased differently, the answer is different.

Reframing the question

It could be said that the question simply requires one to know the context. Most people thinking of the question automatically think of the timeline and it is in this manner that both the previous evolutionary theory and religious teachings contexts arise. Other potential contexts are:

* Having looked through a dictionary from front to back, which came first? - the chicken or the egg?

* When you walked through the supermarket, which came first? - the chicken or the egg?

* When reading the menu, which came first? - the chicken or the egg?

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It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg.

Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.

Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.

Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear.