Which came first - a chicken or an egg? This difficult question has long worried scientists, thinkers and the common man in the street. The riddle seems insoluble, because the chicken emerges from an egg laid by a bird, which should have also emerged from an egg. To break this vicious circle, it is necessary to recall the paradoxes and logical errors existing in logic that accompany inferences.
Ancient Greek thinkers were the first to speak on the issue of the chicken and the egg. For example, Aristotle argued that none of the above was primary, but appeared at the same time. An analogy is the simultaneous appearance of two sides of a minted coin.
According to modern scientific data, the egg appeared before the chicken, since egg-laying arose before any bird appeared. Dinosaurs and Archeopteryx, for example, multiplied in this way. If we are talking specifically about a hen's egg, then in this case the concepts of “egg” and “chicken” have an indistinct volume and from the point of view of logic, it is impossible to make a definite and correct conclusion in this case.
An expert philosopher, geneticist and poultry farm owner took part in one of the most recent public discussions on this topic. The participants in the discussion tried to substantiate their considerations both from a scientific and from a practical point of view.
Evolutionary genetics specialist John Brookfield of the University of Nottingham believes that genetic material remains unchanged throughout the life of any animal. Therefore, the first bird, which in prehistoric times turned into a modern chicken, previously existed in the form of an embryo inside an egg. A living organism hidden in a shell, the scientist believes, has the same DNA as the future bird, hatched from an egg. From this Brookfield concludes that, from the standpoint of evolutionary doctrine, the egg was still the first.
Several other participants in the discussion agreed with the geneticist's arguments. Professor of philosophy from University College London, David Papineau, explained his position in simpler words: the very first chick hatched from an egg, so it appeared before the chicken.
But other scientists, who have thoroughly studied the formation of eggshells, believe that the chicken was the first to appear. Experts from the University of the British city of Sheffield with the help of a powerful computer simulated the process of the appearance of a hen's egg at the genetic level. It turned out that the main role in the formation of the shell is played by the substance ovoclodenin or OC-17. Without this protein, produced exclusively by the bird's body, an egg cannot be born. In other words, to get the first egg, a chicken was needed, in the ovaries of which ovoclodenin is produced.
Obviously, the question of the chicken and the egg is more rhetorical and is often used to figuratively indicate the insolubility of a particular problem.
