The Chicken May Have Come Before the Egg 341
Muondecay writes "The age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, has been tentatively answered. The verdict? The chicken, or rather a key protein needed to form the shell of the egg. The protein, called ovocledidin-17, was known to be involved in binding calcite molecules that formed the shells, but the mechanism behind this was unclear until now. The protein acts as a molecular machine, binding to nanoparticles of calcite and guiding them to begin self-assembly of the shell. This gives tremendous insight for developing methods of nano-scale self-assembly based on natural processes, as well as settling heated cocktail party arguments everywhere."
Me fail logic? That's purple! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't help but feel that the reason why the "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" debate has continued to rage, outside Texas and the other retarded US states which deny Darwin, has a lot to do with arguments like this one. Maybe everyone who can tell the difference between a-protein-now-found-in-chickens and a chicken has long ago come to the conclusion that what came first was some animal different enough from a chicken that we wouldn't call it that, which laid an egg that contained an animal similar enough to a chicken that we would call it a chicken. And only the logic deficient and the religious crazies are left arguing the options.
Fossil Record (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno... dinosaurs laid eggs long before chickens roamed the earth.
Eggasperatingly flawed study. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Okay then. (Score:4, Insightful)
At least, that's my understanding of how it all works...
So the egg came first, later developing an evolutionary advantageous shell.
Re:Me fail logic? That's purple! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people are really bad at dealing with ambiguities and shades of gray. To them the problem is a dichotomy Since the problem isn't really a dichotomy, it doesn't have a solution as a dichotomy, hence the endless arguing.
Eggs came first. I've been saying that forever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, other animals laid eggs well before chickens ever appeared. Dinosaurs, for example.
And there were certainly dinosaur eggs before there were ever chickens.
And fish eggs. And insect eggs. So unless the chickens crossed the time barrier to get away from Colonel Sanders, eggs came before chickens.
Re:Okay then. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Well it would have been soft eggs"
Seems to me that there is proof in today's world for that. Fish lay very soft eggs, or at least all of the fish that I'm aware of. Amphibians lay soft eggs. All the snake's eggs I've ever seen have tough, rubbery shells. Lizard eggs are harder than the snake's eggs that I've seen, but still don't have the brittle calcium egg shell that bird's eggs have.
Oh wait - let me back up a wee bit. I've found a few bird's eggs in the wild that were less hard and brittle than chicken's eggs. Apparently, not all birds produce the same type of egg shell. Duck's egg shells are more rubbery than chicken's eggs.
Nope - no citations for any of that - just personal experience. Go buy a jar of caviar, and examine those fish eggs.
Re:Me fail logic? That's purple! (Score:0, Insightful)
Funny thing here is that if Texas is the only state that doesn't entirely fall for darwinism, 49 states are unaware of the fact that scientists have yet to find solid proof of one creature becoming another creature...ever! This brings up two points:
1- NOW it makes sense why the US has got it's current government. Only one state was smart enough to recognize when someone is taking them for a fool.
2- Micro evolution is STILL a reality even if MACRO-evolution isn't. Otherwise, everyone would look pretty much exactly the same...
Nothing to do with the classic question... (Score:5, Insightful)
<Reporter> Hi, Scientist, thanks for meeting with me today. I'd like to write a story about your work. Could you please explain a little?
<Scientist> We've definitively proven and carefully described the role that protein ovocledidin-17 plays in eggshell formation
<Reporter> Wait, so let me get this straight, you found
<Scientist> Er... yes.
<Reporter> So... that means the chicken came before the egg, right...?
[Scientist to self: Oh god, why couldn't Bob handled this damned interview]
<Scientist> Obviously, it's not really what we were trying to get out of our simulations, but it's an interesting question isn't it?
[The above is a direct quote from researcher Colin Freeman. You can see he is declining to answer by way of polite deflection.]
<Reporter> Excellent! Well, that's about all we need, it was great to meet you and we'll be in touch.
<Scientist> Er... nice... you too...
[Reporter goes back to HQ to write the article]
<Reporter> Okay, I've got this material about a chicken protein... um... ovocledidin-17... it's in chickens and it helps makes eggs and MAN is this stuff boring. Hey I know! What was it he said about the chicken and egg thing I asked him? [Looks at notes.] Well, alright! He didn't deny my proposition that the chicken came first! He must be agreeing with me! Alright! I'll just title my story "Scientists answer ages-old Chicken or Egg question." That oughta grab some eyes.
[Every news outlet in America proceeds to run story]
[Smart people everywhere cringe and sigh]
Re:Me fail logic? That's purple! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Me fail logic? That's purple! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eggasperatingly flawed study. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is mostly irrelevant. A "Chicken" is just a point in time of a particular leaf point in the tree of life. Whatever creatures that were part of that tree that laid the first "chicken" egg was still able to mate with the first "chicken". The point at which you call them "Chickens" is when they're no longer able to successfully mate (as a population) with other offshoots from the tree, or the original, larger, body.
There's no hard point at which one species changes into another (which will confound your average creationist, who are constantly asking for there to be a sharp division between ancestors and child species), it's a gradual process involving thousands of mutations over many generations. Whatever laid the first Chicken egg was still a chicken, and if you go back far enough, it wasn't a chicken, so much as it was the ancestral node in the tree of life's species.
See http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/chickens_eggs_this_is_no_way_t.php [scienceblogs.com]
Bizzz.... WRONG! (Score:4, Insightful)
On a genetic scale the egg formed long before the chicken -- like dinosaur egg long ago.
But even on a more "recent" time scale the egg came first. For clearly a not-chicken laid an egg and from it was hatched a chicken. Of course this was unbeknown to the not-chicken, which simply thought, "you are one ugly not-chicken".
To think otherwise would argue the the not-chicken did not lay eggs but rather gave live birth --which would not even be a bird. I'm pretty sure the Chicken isn't the missing link between Viviparous and Oviporous.
Re:Article is flawed. Egg came first. (Score:1, Insightful)
Life forms do not mutate/evolve/ during their lifespan; the mutations occur at the DNA copying phase when they are creating the next generation.
VZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZLA
Additionally, your body is fixing DNA problems (not always correctly) all the time due to sun damage, free radicals, heavy metals, oxygen, and other nasty everyday stuff. I would actually say that even at birth, it's unlikely that any two cells in your body are alike in terms of the DNA they contain (except red blood cells...). They differ by a [usually] small, insignificant amount, but they'll still be different.
Why is this modded up?
No shit individual cells might mutate, that's not the point. It's almost impossible for the DNA of an ENTIRE ORGANISM to mutate during it's lifetime.
That is why inheritable mutations occur only in the creation of reproductive cells.
Just because your cells mutated into a brain tumor doesn't mean your children will have a brain tumor. This is a very simple genetic concept.
Re:Nothing to do with the classic question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bizzz.... WRONG! (Score:2, Insightful)
A: a chicken egg is an egg laid by a chicken, in which case the chicken came first
OR
B: a chicken egg is an egg containing a chicken, in which case the egg came first.
I thought this was already solved (Score:5, Insightful)
Dinosaurs laid eggs - we've found lots of them.
Chickens evolved from dinosaurs, i.e. came after them.
The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
Re:Actually, here science and the Bible agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Faith is the basis for any knowledge as we know very little a priori. That's not a bad thing, just a fact. Science, by it's very nature, continuously disproves it's theories on a regular basis. In that sense, it is always shifting. The Bible, in contrast, is a solid truth that never changes.
As science shifts, it will at times "prove" the Bible and then subsequently "disprove" the Bible. I just like to point out the times when science says that the Bible is definately wrong on one point only to come back years later and say that it was right. I don't ever believe the so-called evidence one way or the other.
Re:Okay then. (Score:5, Insightful)
This (TFA, not your comment) is the dumbest thing I've seen all week. Chickens and all other birds were evolved from dinasaurs. Dinasaurs laid eggs; dinasaur eggs have been found. The egg came millions of years before chickens evolved.
Jesus, are all journalists noncompos? This is a huge failure of simple reasoning abilities.
Re:Actually, here science and the Bible agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Faith is the basis for any knowledge as we know very little a priori. That's not a bad thing, just a fact. Science, by it's very nature, continuously disproves it's theories on a regular basis. In that sense, it is always shifting. The Bible, in contrast, is a solid truth that never changes.
I think the problem here is that you're defining "knowledge" a bit too strictly. A point that science shows us is indeed that we don't TRULY know anything... we can't, because it's simply impossible. We can however say that "given certain base assumptions, xyz is true". Base assumptions incude things such as "there is no invisible/undetectable intelligent force altering our experiments" and "we are not having a mass hallucination" as well as the more complex ones. These simple ones have to be assumed since there's no way to experimentally test for them.
So, going by the very strict definition of knowledge, no, I don't know anything at all. However, going with my base assumptions, I'll follow science.
Yes, science does occasionally revise things, and on very rare occasions even does complete reversals and says "oops, that was totally wrong - here's some evidence/proof to the contrary". But that doesn't mean what it showed before wasn't useful. Newton's ideas about spacetime seem a bit crude compared to relativity, but they still work amazingly well as a basic model. Relativity will probably seem pretty crude once (if?) we have a GUT that brings gravity in to the fold with the other forces, but it won't suddenly stop working for the limits that it covers.
Let me give you a nice little anecdote about evidence and faith. Last week, I ate a few truffles that contained psilocybin. A couple of hours in to the trip, I was lying on a bed and felt a "presence". It was friendly, warm and comforting. It was powerful and deeply spiritual. It was also entirely a product of my hallucinogen distorted mind. I COULD use that as evidence of a god, a spirit or a higher power. However we're pretty certain, scientifically speaking, that taking psilocybin causes these kinds of feelings. I had taken psilocybin and I felt these feelings. The logical conclusion is therefore that it was the truffles that did it, and there really wasn't a powerful and loving presence in the room with me.
Side note: I consider it personally fulfilling and wonderous even though I fully realise it was only my own mind... In fact, I consider it more wonderous knowing how amazing a human mind can be without needing to attribute it to any external supernatural power.
Re:I thought this was already solved (Score:1, Insightful)
The question is "Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?"
The question is NOT: "Which came first, the Chicken or the Chicken Egg?"
Re:2340 years late (Score:0, Insightful)
----The Bible isn't that unique----
There are several aspects in which the Bible, especially the Gospel, is very unique. One of them, probably the biggest difference is that all other religions, with not a single exception, teach their followers how to approach God or whatever else they may call the goal of their religion. Only the Christian gospel of Jesus Christ is exactly the opposite. It is God, out of love, reaching out to us humans, by becoming human himself. There is nothing anyone of us could do for God. All he has ever asked and is still asking is that we should truly trust him and depend on him. This is where the first humans failed and those who refuse to believe God's word still fail. Only the God of the Bible commands people love him and through Jesus Christ has given human beings the ability to do that. Other religions, such as the Muslim's Allah commands strict obedience, not love.
The founders of all other religions are still in the grave. None of the other religions, not even one, dare to even make the claim that the one they are following was physically, bodily raised from death. It was the fact of the Resurrection, that transformed a bunch of scared followers of Jesus to enable them to fundamentally change their world and subsequently human history down to our very own day. Other religions, such as the Muslims have a dead prophet, but Christians love, adore and serve the living Lord.
Only in the Bible do we get history written down accurately in advance. It not only accurately foretells many details of what happened in the life of Jesus Christ, but is literally being fulfilled before our eyes. For example, it accurately foretells that the Jewish people would be scattered all over the earth, but in the last days be gathered out of all nations into their ancient land. Biblical prophecy about Jerusalem again being the capital city of a sovereign nation of Israel has come true. Zechariah's prophecy about Jerusalem becoming a bone of contention to all nations all around the world is echoed almost every day in the headlines of the news-media. Does it not strike you illogical, that the tiny nation of Israel with only 8200 km is such a bone of contention, the subject of unreasoning hatred of nations occupying millions of square kilometers? Yet this was predicted by Jesus Christ would happen to his people.
-----I'd dearly LOVE to believe in the Christian faith------
This is because your Creator God has put within you a deep yearning for himself. To achieve that peace and happiness your heart is crying out for, you only have to trust and believe him, nothing more. Once you do that, his Spirit will indwell you, enabling you to love him, live for him and your fellow man right here on earth. Once you graduate the University of Earth by death, you will be, as Jesus told his disciples,"where I am you will be also, for I am going to prepare a place for you".
It is not at all unreasonable or illogical to believe in the transcendent God who created the universe and loves you. I am a retired electrical engineer. I have spent most of my working life at Stanford University building and testing complex apparatus which enabled a number of scientists to earn Nobel prizes while discovering the secrets of creation. To be a Christian does not mean you have to check your brain at the door of the church. The apostle Paul, in the Bible, the book of Romans, admonishes Christians:
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your RESONABLE service.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your MIND, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.
As a Christian, I believe in a reasonable God who expects that belief in his offer of grace and love is a logical thing to do. I sincerely hope, that in reading the Bible, you too will come to the conclusion, such as I have, that the offer of God's grace is also there for you.