this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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This particular philosophical question was shot down by geneticists quite some time ago.
The first chicken was created due to a mutation. Genome mutations occur during cell division, in eggs, and in the mitochondrial genome.
The first chicken hatched from the first chicken egg. Therefore, the egg came first.
But is chicken-ness actually defined by genetics? An important characteristic of a chicken is its domesticated status, if you consider the birds they descend from, they are remarkably similar, and it's hard to imagine that any one mutation would have been what caused people to start calling them by their own name or considering them as a separate species. It's possible that the first chicken became the first chicken when it was captured by humans, and so preceded the first chicken egg.
Yup. The domesticated chicken has changed quite a bit since domestication began, but the species is still a domesticated chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus). The primary ancestor of the domestic chicken, the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), birthed the first domesticated chicken between 7,000-10,000 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken