tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post1780545305519116111..comments2024-03-29T11:00:39.953+00:00Comments on RevK<sup>®</sup>'s ramblings: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?RevKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12369263214193333422noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-47251834896818645942023-04-12T19:40:02.491+01:002023-04-12T19:40:02.491+01:00I disagree. Naming object like this based on what...I disagree. Naming object like this based on what they come *from* is exactly how we do it.<br /><br />A human hair is a hair that came from a human.<br />A dinosaur bone is a bone that came from a dinosaur.<br />A slug trail is a trail that came from a slug.<br />A chicken egg is an egg that came from a chicken.<br /><br />The fact that eggs happen to have a unique property that they also grow into a new organism doesn't mean they deserve to be named through a different convention to everything else.<br /><br />An artificial egg would not be a chicken egg, even if a chicken hatched from it. It would be an artificial egg.<br /><br />So, to my surprise, my conclusion is that the chicken came first, because the only linguistically consistent way to define "chicken egg" is "egg from a chicken".mgboyeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11087136219633309258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-52301194931258654082023-04-12T10:38:01.107+01:002023-04-12T10:38:01.107+01:00I think the only reasonable definition of "an...I think the only reasonable definition of "animal X egg" is "egg which is genetically an animal X and will develop into an animal X if it survives". Defining the egg based on the animal it comes FROM makes sense only because under any normal circumstance, an egg develops into the same species of animal that laid it.<br /><br />One can imagine a hypothetical future situation where chicken eggs can be created with a replicator, or grown in a lab somehow, but it wouldn't make much sense to declare that they are not chicken eggs because they didn't actually come out of a mother chicken.InfiniteDissenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00463076301051295104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-55843277566466609492023-04-08T15:29:48.383+01:002023-04-08T15:29:48.383+01:00Your choice is picking the "and egg that hatc...Your choice is picking the "and egg that hatches in to a chicken" definition of "chicken egg" and hence egg first. Well done.RevKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369263214193333422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-49467695523423463602023-04-08T15:24:05.610+01:002023-04-08T15:24:05.610+01:00The egg's genes are a combination of the genes...The egg's genes are a combination of the genes of its parents but genetically identical to the chicken which hatches from it so, by whatever fine-grained definition of "chicken" you use, the egg is genetically a chicken's egg before the first bird which is genetically a chicken.<br /><br />What confuses me, though, is that that first chicken has to breed with another bird to establish the bird species. That other bird is not, by our silly hair-splitting (feather-splitting?) definition, a chicken yet the resulting combination chicken and not-quite chicken genes has to still cross the chickenness line. Hmmm…Ed Davieshttps://edavies.me.uk/noreply@blogger.com