mf - story #894

Egg
posted by rick on March 17th, 2008 at 11:09PM

If I remember my genetics course correctly, at some point, a final mutation changed the DNA in the egg from a non-chicken bird into a chicken.

(Although, what did this question have to do with the article, other than the first sentence? :))

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posted by dsk on March 18th, 2008 at 12:08PM

If you take a chicken and compare every one of it ancestors, you wouldn't be able to point to anyone of them as being sufficiently different from the previous one so as to call one something and call another something different.

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posted by dennisn on March 18th, 2008 at 1:16PM

The point is, though, that the difference exists (whether it's "sufficient" or not is immaterial in this context). The egg came first. I think the whole "issue" between the chicken v. egg is the "issue" between evolution and creation theory. Ugh.

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posted by dsk on March 18th, 2008 at 2:28PM

>The point is, though, that the difference exists (whether it's "sufficient" or not is immaterial in this context).

By your argument, I could claim that chickens in fact, do not exist. What we now know as chickens are actually unnamed flightless descendants of chickens of yesteryear.

>I think the whole "issue" between the chicken v. egg is the "issue" between evolution and creation theory.

Close. The question itself is framed for creationism. It is a caricature of evolution. There is no clear boundary in a lineage that you can point to and say "Ah ha - this is where chickens began".

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posted by rick on March 18th, 2008 at 7:42PM

So ... how do you explain what a chicken is? Or do you refute the existence of chickens?

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>So ... how do you explain wha by dsk on March 18th, 2008 at 10:54PM.

-- by dsk on March 19th, 2008 at 1:31AM.

If a mutation occurs in the eg by rick on March 18th, 2008 at 11:51PM.

>If a mutation occurs in the e by dsk on March 19th, 2008 at 1:32AM.

Sure, at the molecular level - by dennisn on March 19th, 2008 at 9:08AM.

We don't have clear definition by Driusan on March 19th, 2008 at 6:34PM.

>We don't have clear definitio by dsk on March 19th, 2008 at 10:31PM.