Plutarch.
It was Plutarch who gave the question its enduring form, “Whether the Hen or the Egg Came first,” writing of the “little question” that it “shook the great and weighty problem (whether the world had a beginning).” In the fifth century, one Roman scholar, Macrobius, wrote that people “jest about what you suppose to be a
Who came up with the chicken and the egg?
Those phrases refer to the traditional problem of which came first, the chicken/hen (to lay the egg) or the egg (to produce the chicken/hen). This problem is first recorded in Quaestiones Convivales, by the Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch (circa 46-circa 120).
What came first the chicken or the egg theory?
Back to our original question: with amniotic eggs showing up roughly 340 million or so years ago, and the first chickens evolving at around 58 thousand years ago at the earliest, it’s a safe bet to say the egg came first. Eggs were around way before chickens even existed.
Where did the egg theory originate?
Vedic mythology
The earliest idea of the “cosmic egg” comes from some of the Sanskrit scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (ब्रह्माण्ड) which is derived from two words – ‘Brahma’ (ब्रह्मा) the ‘creator god’ in Hinduism and ‘anda’ (अण्ड) meaning ‘egg’.
What did Aristotle say about chicken and egg?
Back in Ancient Greece, Aristotle claimed that the chicken and the egg both had always existed and went infinitely back in time. Plutarch, a Greek writer, well known for his philosophical questions, famously pondered whether the hen or the egg came first.
How does evolution explain the chicken and the egg?
From ancestor bird to chicken, a long unbroken lineage of birds kept laying eggs. Each chick was little different from its parents, and over millions of years, these nuances built up to the point where the bird now looked like what we call a chicken.
Why the chicken came before the egg?
Scientists have now claimed to have cracked the riddle of whether the chicken or the egg came first. The answer, they say, is the chicken. Researchers found that the formation of egg shells relies on a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries. Therefore, an egg can exist only if it has been inside a chicken.
Who laid the first egg?
Egg laying almost certainly came before live birth; the armored fish that inhabited the oceans half a billion years ago and were ancestral to all land vertebrates seem to have laid eggs.
Is chicken and egg situation an idiom?
The idiom a chicken and egg situation has two related definitions. First, a chicken and egg situation may be one in which it is impossible to decide which of two things caused the other thing, or which of two things existed first. For instance, an employee who performs poorly may blame it on having a surly boss.
What two birds created the chicken?
Scientists believe the red jungle fowl, Gallus gallus, is the most likely progenitor of the modern chicken, although research suggests that the domestic chicken’s yellow skin is a trait inherited from the gray jungle fowl, Gallus sonneratii.
What is the chicken and egg problem business?
At a minimum it needs two, its consumers and its producers. But a new platform doesn’t initially create enough value to attract new users. It’s not economical for consumers to join the platform when there are no producers, and vice versa. This is called the chicken-and-egg problem.
When was the first chicken discovered?
The earliest chicken remains came from between 1650 B.C.E. and 1250 B.C.E., during the Bronze Age. Instead of being flooded like paddies, the fields were soaked by seasonal rains and attracted hungry wildfowl. The researchers note that this led to chicken domestication around 3,500 years ago, Science News reports.
Where did chickens first originate?
Southeast Asia
The chicken is one of the most ubiquitous domesticated animals; it is bred for both its egg and meat, and is thought to have originally been domesticated from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) native to multiple regions from Southeast Asia to Southwest China3,4,5.
Who came first on earth?
The earliest life forms we know of were microscopic organisms (microbes) that left signals of their presence in rocks about 3.7 billion years old.
What animal was the first to exist on earth?
Earth’s first animal was the ocean-drifting comb jelly, not the simple sponge, according to a new find that has shocked scientists who didn’t imagine the earliest critter could be so complex. The mystery of the first animal denizen of the planet can only be inferred from fossils and by studying related animals today.
When did the egg first evolve?
The shelled amniote egg, which is familiar to many of us as chicken eggs, evolved about 325 million years ago. The wild ancestors of chickens, in contrast, only appeared a few million years ago (and chickens were domesticated much more recently than that).
Does every egg become a chicken?
Hens lay eggs with our without a rooster present. Without a rooster to fertilize the egg, it will never become a chick.
Is a egg a meat?
The bottom line: Eggs are not meat, but they do have a similar level of protein.
What was the first egg?
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.
Why do humans don’t lay eggs?
Why can’t humans reproduce like birds and be egg-laying creatures? Because mammals (excluding the Platypus) gave up egg laying and evolved a “give birth to live young” system.
Is laying an egg like giving birth?
Laying an egg is very different from human labor and birth. In humans, a baby’s body and head are very large in relation to a woman’s pelvis. Labor thus takes an average of 9 hours in human women. One in a thousand babies have heads so large they can’t be delivered vaginally and c-sections must be performed.