Comments on: Great moments in pedantry: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 02:11:00 +0000

Zing!

By: jimkirk

jimkirk — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:46:00 +0000

Years ago a friend explained it to me like this:
If you accept evolution, the egg.
If you believe the Bible’s creation story, the chicken.

By: tyger11

tyger11 — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:41:00 +0000

Also, less ‘pee/poo cloud’ with lid down before flushing.

By: Werther deGoethe

Werther deGoethe — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:41:00 +0000

The rooster.

By: peted66616

peted66616 — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:43:00 +0000

Exactly. This particular “paradox” has always seemed silly to me, mainly for reason #2.

It’s right up there with “toilet seat up or down?” Duh. Neither…you put the seat and the lid down, so you don’t accidently drop something into the bowl, and so your dog doesn’t go drink from it and then give you a big wet toilet-soaked kiss.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 23:39:00 +0000

For a long time this has seemed like a dumb question to me.

Of course it’s the egg, on two counts:

1, in the first place, eggs have been around a hell of a lot longer than chickens.

2, if you grant the question refers to a chicken egg, then regardless of the arbitrariness of the descriptor, at some point there must have been a first chicken, ie something that only just conforms to the relevant criteria. The egg it hatched from isn’t from a chicken, but since it contained a chicken, it has to be a chicken egg.

By: awjt

awjt — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:37:00 +0000

“Which came first, the chicken or the egg? First I ate the chicken, and then I ate his leg.” -Beastie Boys