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{{Short description|Philosophical paradox}}
]
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
⚫ {{Wiktionary|chicken-or-egg question}}
]'', 14th century]]
The '''chicken or the egg''' ] ] is commonly stated as "which came first: the ] or the ]?". The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. "Chicken-and-egg" is a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the ''cause'' and which should be considered the ''effect''
The '''chicken or the egg''' ] ] is commonly stated as the question, "which came first: the ] or the ]?" The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. "Chicken-and-egg" is a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the ''cause'' and which should be considered the ''effect'', to express a scenario of ], or to express the difficulty of sequencing actions where each seems to depend on others being done first. ] posed the question as a philosophical matter in his essay "]", written in the 1st century CE.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Essays and Miscellanies, by Plutarch|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3052/3052-h/3052-h.htm|access-date=2020-07-07|website=]}}</ref><ref name="O'Brien">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KQNEBgAAQBAJ&q=chicken+and+the+egg+problem+Plutarch&pg=PA106|title=The Demiurge in Ancient Thought|last=O'Brien|first=Carl Séan|date=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-07536-8|location=Cambridge, England|page=106}}</ref>

==Ancient legacy==
The question represents an ancient folk paradox addressing the problem of origins and ].<ref name="paradox">{{cite book|last=Sorensen|first=Roy|title=A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind|url=https://archive.org/details/strategicinnovat00afua_285|url-access=limited|publisher=Oxford University Press|place=Oxford|year=2003|pages=–11|isbn=978-0-19-515903-5}}</ref> ], writing in the fourth century BCE, concluded that this was an infinite sequence, with no true origin.<ref name="paradox" /> Plutarch, writing four centuries later, specifically highlighted this question as bearing on a "great and weighty problem (whether the world had a beginning)".<ref name="Fabry">{{cite magazine
⚫ | title=Now You Know: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
⚫ | url=https://time.com/4475048/which-came-first-chicken-egg/
⚫ | first=Merrill
⚫ | last=Fabry
⚫ | date=2016-09-21
| magazine=]
| access-date=2017-07-11}}</ref> In the fifth century CE, ] wrote that while the question seemed trivial, it "should be regarded as one of importance".<ref name="Fabry" />

By the end of the 16th century, the well-known question seemed to have been regarded as settled in the Christian world, based on the origin story of the ]. In describing the creation of animals, it allows for a first chicken that did not come from an egg. However, later ] philosophers began to question this solution.<ref name="Fabry" /> ] in the mid 17th-century published an erudite satire on the subject.<ref>, by Carlo Dati, Presse Settembre, Naples, 1840.</ref>

⚫ ==Scientific resolutions==
Although the question is typically used metaphorically, ] provides literal answers, made possible by the Darwinian principle that species ] over time, and thus that chickens had ancestors that were not chickens,<ref name="Fabry" /> similar to a view expressed by the Greek philosopher ] when addressing the paradox.<ref name="paradox" />


If the question refers to eggs in general, the egg came first. The first ] egg – that is, a hard-shelled egg that could be laid on land, rather than remaining in water like the eggs of fish or amphibians – appeared around 312 million years ago.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Benton|first1=Michael J.|last2=Donoghue|first2=Philip C. J.|date=2007-01-01|title=Paleontological Evidence to Date the Tree of Life|url=https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/24/1/26/1070944|journal=]|volume=24|issue=1|pages=26–53|doi=10.1093/molbev/msl150|issn=0737-4038|pmid=17047029|doi-access=free}}</ref> In contrast, chickens are domesticated descendants of ] and probably arose little more than eight thousand years ago, at most.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Miao|first1=Y-W|last2=Peng|first2=M-S|last3=Wu|first3=G-S|last4=Ouyang|first4=Y-N|last5=Yang|first5=Z-Y|last6=Yu|first6=N|last7=Liang|first7=J-P|last8=Pianchou|first8=G|last9=Beja-Pereira|first9=A|date=2012-12-05|title=Chicken domestication: an updated perspective based on mitochondrial genomes|journal=]|language=en|volume=110|issue=3|pages=277–282|doi=10.1038/hdy.2012.83|issn=1365-2540|pmc=3668654|pmid=23211792}}</ref>
⚫ ==Scientific resolution==
Although the question is typically used metaphorically, literal answers have been formulated for whether the chicken or egg came first.


If the question refers to ''chicken'' eggs specifically, the answer is still the egg, but the explanation is more complicated.<ref name=SOR>{{cite journal|first= Roy A. |last=Sorensen|title=The Egg came before the chicken|journal=Mind|volume=101|number=403|pages=541–542|year=1992|url=https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/101/403/541/947797?redirectedFrom=fulltext|doi=10.1093/mind/101.403.541}}</ref> The process by which the chicken arose through the interbreeding and domestication of multiple species of wild jungle fowl is poorly understood, and the point at which this evolving organism became a chicken is a somewhat arbitrary distinction. Whatever criteria one chooses, an animal nearly identical to the modern chicken (i.e., a ]-chicken) laid a fertilized egg that had DNA making it a modern chicken due to mutations in the mother's ovum, the father's sperm, or the fertilised ].<ref>{{cite web
If the question refers to eggs in general, the egg came first, as the first egg-laying animals evolved millions of years prior to birds.<ref>{{cite journal
| title=FYI: Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg?
| first=Daniel
| last=Engber
| date=2013-03-20
| journal=Popular Science
| volume=282
| issue=3
| page=78
| publisher=]
| url=http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/fyi-which-came-first-chicken-or-egg
| accessdate=2017-07-11}}</ref> If the question refers to ''chicken'' eggs specifically, the answer is again the egg, but the explanation is more complicated. An animal nearly identical to the modern chicken (i.e., a ]-chicken) laid a fertilized egg that had DNA identical to the modern chicken (due to mutations in the mother's ovum, the father's sperm, or the fertilised ]).<ref>{{cite web
| title=Finally answered! Which came first, the chicken or the egg? | title=Finally answered! Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
| url=https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/finally-answered-which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg | url=https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/finally-answered-which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg
Line 24: Line 28:
| date=2013-02-11 | date=2013-02-11
| website=] | website=]
| access-date=2017-07-11}}</ref><ref name="Fabry" /><ref name="Zushi">{{cite news|last=Zushi |first=Yo |publisher=NewStatesman.com |date=27 February 2017|title=Which came first: the chicken or the egg? |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/2017/which-came-first-chicken-or-egg}}</ref><ref name="NBCnews.com">{{cite news|publisher=NBCnews.com |date=14 July 2010|title=Which came first, the chicken or the egg? British scientists claim to have solved the mystery|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38238685}}</ref>
| accessdate=2017-07-11}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
⚫ | title=Now You Know: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
⚫ | url=http://time.com/4475048/which-came-first-chicken-egg/
⚫ | first=Merrill
⚫ | last=Fabry
⚫ | date=2016-09-21
| website=]
| accessdate=2017-07-11}}</ref> Put more simply by ]: "Which came first: the chicken or the egg? The egg – laid by a bird that was not a chicken."<ref>{{cite web
| url=https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/296100559423954944
| title=Just to settle it once and for all: Which came first the Chicken or the Egg? The Egg -- laid by a bird that was not a Chicken
| author=]
| date=2013-01-28
| publisher=]
| accessdate=2017-07-11}}</ref>
For ], "The chicken is only an egg's way of making another egg."


It has been suggested that the actions of a ] found in modern chicken eggs may make the answer different.<ref name="Zushi" /><ref name="NBCnews.com"/> In the uterus, chickens produce ovocleidin-17 (OC-17), which causes the formation of the thickened ] shell around their eggs. Because OC-17 is expressed by the hen and not the egg, the bird in which the protein first arose, though having hatched from a non-reinforced egg, would then have laid the first egg having such a reinforced shell: the chicken would have preceded this first 'modern' chicken egg.<ref name="Zushi" /><ref name="NBCnews.com"/> However, the presence of OC-17 or a homolog in other species, such as turkeys<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mann|first1=Karlheinz|last2=Mann|first2=Matthias|title=The proteome of the calcified layer organic matrix of turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) eggshell|journal=Proteome Sci.|year=2013|volume=11|issue=1|page=40|doi=10.1186/1477-5956-11-40|pmid=23981693|pmc=3766105 |doi-access=free }}</ref> and finches<ref>{{cite journal|last=Mann|first=Karlheinz|title=The calcified eggshell matrix proteome of a songbird, the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata)|journal=Proteome Sci.|year=2015|volume=13|page=29|doi=10.1186/s12953-015-0086-1|pmc=4666066|pmid=26628892 |doi-access=free }}</ref> suggests that such eggshell-reinforcing proteins are common to all birds,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hincke|first1=Maxwell T.|last2=Nys|first2=Yves|last3=Gautron|first3=Joel|title=The Role of Matrix Proteins in Eggshell Formation|journal=The Journal of Poultry Science|year=2010|volume=47|issue=3|pages=208–219|doi=10.2141/jpsa.009122|doi-access=free}}</ref> and thus long predate the first chickens.
==Philosophical perspective==
Ancient philosophers were not aware of ]. ] (384–322 BC) was reportedly puzzled by the idea that there could be a first ] or egg and concluded that both the bird and egg must have always existed:


==Disputations==
<blockquote>
In Indonesia, on 24 July 2024, two men were at a drinking party when they entered into a chicken-or-egg debate. One man became so emotionally enraged, he left and returned with a knife, stabbing the other 15 times, killing him. It's uncertain which side – chicken or egg – the killer took.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sharma |first=Shweta |title=Indonesian man stabs friend to death over chicken or egg debate |work=The Independent |date=30 July 2024 |access-date=2024-08-01 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/indonesia-chicken-egg-question-murder-sulawesi-b2588159.html }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Beschizza |first=Rob |title=Man stabbed to death in debate over whether chicken or egg came first |work=] |date=1 August 2024 |access-date=2024-04-01 |url=https://boingboing.net/2024/08/01/man-stabbed-to-death-in-debate-over-whether-chicken-or-egg-came-first.html }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last= |first= |title=Perkara Teka-teki Ayam atau Telur Duluan, Pria di Sultra Bunuh Temannya |date=27 July 2024 |work=Kumparan |access-date=2024-04-01 |url=https://kumparan.com/kumparannews/perkara-teka-teki-ayam-atau-telur-duluan-pria-di-sultra-bunuh-temannya-23D1L0YXc97 |language=id}}</ref>
If there has been a first man he must have been born without father or mother &ndash; which is repugnant to nature. For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an egg.<ref>{{cite book
| author=]
| title=Abrégé des vies des anciens philosophes: avec un recueil de leurs plus belles maximes
| location=Paris
| year=1726
| page=314
| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L-oTAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA314}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
| title=Lives of the ancient philosophers, with a life of the author
| author=]
| location=London
| year=1825
| page=202
| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tNkGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA202}}</ref>
</blockquote>


==See also== ==See also==
* ], the solution to an analogous problem in computer science
* ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]


==References== ==References==
{{Reflist|30em}} {{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
⚫ {{Wiktionary|chicken-or-egg question}}
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328152932/https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/1706-1.174049 |date=2023-03-28 }} 12 July 2010 {{cite journal|doi=10.1002/anie.201000679|pmid=20540126|volume=49|title=Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein|year=2010|journal=Angewandte Chemie International Edition|pages=5135–5137|last1=Freeman|first1=Colin L.|last2=Harding|first2=John H.|last3=Quigley|first3=David|last4=Rodger|first4=P. Mark|issue=30}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Chicken Or Egg}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Chicken Or Egg}}
⚫ ]
] ]
] ]
] ]
⚫ ]
]
]
]
]

Latest revision as of 04:23, 6 December 2024

Philosophical paradox

Illustration of a woman collecting hens' eggs from Tacuina sanitatis, 14th century

The chicken or the egg causality dilemma is commonly stated as the question, "which came first: the chicken or the egg?" The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. "Chicken-and-egg" is a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the cause and which should be considered the effect, to express a scenario of infinite regress, or to express the difficulty of sequencing actions where each seems to depend on others being done first. Plutarch posed the question as a philosophical matter in his essay "The Symposiacs", written in the 1st century CE.

Ancient legacy

The question represents an ancient folk paradox addressing the problem of origins and first cause. Aristotle, writing in the fourth century BCE, concluded that this was an infinite sequence, with no true origin. Plutarch, writing four centuries later, specifically highlighted this question as bearing on a "great and weighty problem (whether the world had a beginning)". In the fifth century CE, Macrobius wrote that while the question seemed trivial, it "should be regarded as one of importance".

By the end of the 16th century, the well-known question seemed to have been regarded as settled in the Christian world, based on the origin story of the Bible. In describing the creation of animals, it allows for a first chicken that did not come from an egg. However, later Enlightenment philosophers began to question this solution. Carlo Dati in the mid 17th-century published an erudite satire on the subject.

Scientific resolutions

Although the question is typically used metaphorically, evolutionary biology provides literal answers, made possible by the Darwinian principle that species evolve over time, and thus that chickens had ancestors that were not chickens, similar to a view expressed by the Greek philosopher Anaximander when addressing the paradox.

If the question refers to eggs in general, the egg came first. The first amniote egg – that is, a hard-shelled egg that could be laid on land, rather than remaining in water like the eggs of fish or amphibians – appeared around 312 million years ago. In contrast, chickens are domesticated descendants of red junglefowl and probably arose little more than eight thousand years ago, at most.

If the question refers to chicken eggs specifically, the answer is still the egg, but the explanation is more complicated. The process by which the chicken arose through the interbreeding and domestication of multiple species of wild jungle fowl is poorly understood, and the point at which this evolving organism became a chicken is a somewhat arbitrary distinction. Whatever criteria one chooses, an animal nearly identical to the modern chicken (i.e., a proto-chicken) laid a fertilized egg that had DNA making it a modern chicken due to mutations in the mother's ovum, the father's sperm, or the fertilised zygote.

It has been suggested that the actions of a protein found in modern chicken eggs may make the answer different. In the uterus, chickens produce ovocleidin-17 (OC-17), which causes the formation of the thickened calcium carbonate shell around their eggs. Because OC-17 is expressed by the hen and not the egg, the bird in which the protein first arose, though having hatched from a non-reinforced egg, would then have laid the first egg having such a reinforced shell: the chicken would have preceded this first 'modern' chicken egg. However, the presence of OC-17 or a homolog in other species, such as turkeys and finches suggests that such eggshell-reinforcing proteins are common to all birds, and thus long predate the first chickens.

Disputations

In Indonesia, on 24 July 2024, two men were at a drinking party when they entered into a chicken-or-egg debate. One man became so emotionally enraged, he left and returned with a knife, stabbing the other 15 times, killing him. It's uncertain which side – chicken or egg – the killer took.

See also

References

  1. "Essays and Miscellanies, by Plutarch". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2020-07-07.
  2. O'Brien, Carl Séan (2015). The Demiurge in Ancient Thought. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-107-07536-8.
  3. ^ Sorensen, Roy (2003). A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 4–11. ISBN 978-0-19-515903-5.
  4. ^ Fabry, Merrill (2016-09-21). "Now You Know: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?". Time. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
  5. Cicalata sopra chi fosse prima o la gallina o l'ouovo, by Carlo Dati, Presse Settembre, Naples, 1840.
  6. Benton, Michael J.; Donoghue, Philip C. J. (2007-01-01). "Paleontological Evidence to Date the Tree of Life". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 24 (1): 26–53. doi:10.1093/molbev/msl150. ISSN 0737-4038. PMID 17047029.
  7. Miao, Y-W; Peng, M-S; Wu, G-S; Ouyang, Y-N; Yang, Z-Y; Yu, N; Liang, J-P; Pianchou, G; Beja-Pereira, A (2012-12-05). "Chicken domestication: an updated perspective based on mitochondrial genomes". Heredity. 110 (3): 277–282. doi:10.1038/hdy.2012.83. ISSN 1365-2540. PMC 3668654. PMID 23211792.
  8. Sorensen, Roy A. (1992). "The Egg came before the chicken". Mind. 101 (403): 541–542. doi:10.1093/mind/101.403.541.
  9. Breyer, Melissa (2013-02-11). "Finally answered! Which came first, the chicken or the egg?". Mother Nature Network. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
  10. ^ Zushi, Yo (27 February 2017). "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?". NewStatesman.com.
  11. ^ "Which came first, the chicken or the egg? British scientists claim to have solved the mystery". NBCnews.com. 14 July 2010.
  12. Mann, Karlheinz; Mann, Matthias (2013). "The proteome of the calcified layer organic matrix of turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) eggshell". Proteome Sci. 11 (1): 40. doi:10.1186/1477-5956-11-40. PMC 3766105. PMID 23981693.
  13. Mann, Karlheinz (2015). "The calcified eggshell matrix proteome of a songbird, the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata)". Proteome Sci. 13: 29. doi:10.1186/s12953-015-0086-1. PMC 4666066. PMID 26628892.
  14. Hincke, Maxwell T.; Nys, Yves; Gautron, Joel (2010). "The Role of Matrix Proteins in Eggshell Formation". The Journal of Poultry Science. 47 (3): 208–219. doi:10.2141/jpsa.009122.
  15. Sharma, Shweta (30 July 2024). "Indonesian man stabs friend to death over chicken or egg debate". The Independent. Retrieved 2024-08-01.
  16. Beschizza, Rob (1 August 2024). "Man stabbed to death in debate over whether chicken or egg came first". BoingBoing. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
  17. "Perkara Teka-teki Ayam atau Telur Duluan, Pria di Sultra Bunuh Temannya". Kumparan (in Indonesian). 27 July 2024. Retrieved 2024-04-01.

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