• @LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    The chicken vs egg question has never been about chronology or science.

    It’s been about religion vs science.

    Science says the egg came first: something nearly imperceptibly not quite a chicken laid an egg that hatched a chicken. That’s how evolution works, with the egg coming first.

    Religion says a god poofed a chicken into existence. The chicken came first, and only ever laid pure chicken eggs. The eggs will forever hatch a chicken and nothing but a chicken.

    That’s the chicken vs egg thing. It’s not a puzzle at all, it’s just science vs religion.

    e: simplified. I’m too wordy by default.

    • @pyre@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      literally no one in the world means that when they talk about chicken vs egg. what a weird way to look at the world.

      also citation needed on religion saying god proofed chicken into existence without the egg.

        • @pyre@lemmy.world
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          511 months ago

          first of all kudos on the citations; thank you for your effort.

          I don’t think these prove that the question is about religion vs science. the question is philosophical, and the fact that some religious people have a take on it that doesn’t agree with what would be the scientific/technical answer doesn’t make it about religion vs science.

          if a tree falls and no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? that would also have a scientific answer, and depending on the religion, you may have a religious argument that disagrees with the scientific answer. the question would remain a philosophical one, and not one of science vs religion.

          • @LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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            111 months ago

            I wasn’t trying to prove the question is about religion vs science; I was responding to the previous comment that said:

            literally no one in the world means that

            My links show lots of people in the world say that. Not everyone, but enough that it does come up sometimes.

            There are multiple facets and perspectives in every philosophical question.

      • AFK BRB Chocolate
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        2611 months ago

        Yes, thank you, you’re exactly right. The person you’re responding to is correct that it’s come to have science vs religion overtones, but that’s not what the expression meant to people for ages and ages.

      • @LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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        611 months ago

        You’re right, I shouldn’t have said ‘never’. It was a paradox in ancient history, but at least in my lifetime, I’ve read it as basically solved. That may be a relatively recent stance (since 100-200 years ago), but it doesn’t seem useful to continue presenting it as a paradox at this point.

    • Iron Lynx
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      411 months ago

      I think there are two valid scientific/philosophical answers without taking religion into it, based on one question:

      Are we specifically talking a chicken egg, or the concept of an egg?

      In the former case, eggshells contain compounds that cannot exist in nature, and must come from a creature. a chicken egg cannot exist without a chicken before it, thus the chicken came first.

      In the latter case, various evolutionary splits happened between animals evolving egg developing capability and some animals evolving into chickens. From this we can say that the egg came before the chicken.

      Worst case, this solved exactly nothing. Best case, it can be an exercise in reasoning.