Which Came First, The Chicken or The Egg?

• Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?



• A: To get to the other side.



• Q: Why did the blonde cross the road?



• A: Because the chicken told her to!

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, said the pecking order was clear.

The living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said.

"Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first."

The other two members of the three-man panel of experts, Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns, also concluded the egg came first.

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[tags]chicken, egg, which, came, first, mystery, solved [/tags]