Some pointless ponderings on an age-old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Aristotle: Actuality precedes potentiality in terms of value. An egg is a potential chicken. A chicken is actual. Therefore, the chicken came first.
Evolutionist: There existed a bird, a proto-chicken, whose DNA mutated when it laid an egg from which the first chicken hatched. So, the egg came first.
2nd Evolutionist: Ah! That was a proto-chicken’s egg, not a chicken egg. A chicken must come from a chicken egg. The chicken came first.
Biblical Creationist: The chicken was first according to Genesis 1:21, “So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.”
Non-Biblical Creationist: At first it seems that either the egg or chicken could be created first. But if the egg was created first, there would be no chicken around to feed and care for the first hatchling. So, the chicken would have been created first.
Existentialist: What is the true meaning of the “essence of chickenness”? What were the circumstances of the pre-chicken prior to it becoming a fully actualized chicken? In other words, how did the pre-chicken exist without enough “chicken essence”? Whatever the answer, it was the egg that contained the necessary “chicken essence” needed to eventually become the chicken. Therefore, the egg was first.
Geneticist: For passing along its DNA, a chicken is an egg’s way of making another egg.
Rationalist: I lay eggs, therefore I am chicken.
Postmodern Relativist: From the egg’s point of view, the chicken came first. From the chicken’s point of view, the egg came first.
Hindu: The egg and chicken are only stages within the cycle of life. There is no beginning or end to the cycle. So, neither one came first.
Pagan: The egg is a symbol of life, an initiator of things to be.
Taoist: The egg and chicken are one.
Zen: How many feathers does a chicken have?
The Matrix: There is no chicken. There is no egg.
Lexicon: Chicken comes before egg in the dictionary.
Culinary: Depends on the recipe.
Calembour: The egg because it simply eggsisted.
Bob: Still working on why did the chicken cross the road?
Please let me eggstend an apology for my eggstremely eggstravagant and overly eggstensive eggsposition. In the end, answering this poultry question dozen seem to prove anything.