Chicken and egg debate unscrambled
Egg came first, 'eggsperts' agree

LONDON, England -- It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg.

Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.

Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.

Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear.

The living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said.

"Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first."

The same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns.

Mr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens.

He told PA people were mistaken if they argued that the mutant egg belonged to the "non-chicken" bird parents.

"I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," he said.

"If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg."

Bourns, chairman of trade body Great British Chicken, said he was also firmly in the pro-egg camp.

He said: "Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs."

The debate, which may come as a relief to those with argumentative relatives, was organized by Disney to promote the release of the film "Chicken Little" on DVD.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/

I do not agree with some of the friends here who believed that asking this question is pointless. This is a very good question, if someone creates spams and meaningless replies, it is the person who needs to be educated, and not the question itself. Try looking at any serious science books on topic related to searching for origin of life, the question of chicken and egg always pop up. Not just in sciences, this question also carries weight in philosophy and religion.

Philosophy
If chicken needs egg and egg needs chicken, this is a typical type of causal feedback loop. Putting our heads inside the cloudy water of this continuous loop yields no answer, hence a paradox.

Every human who exists has a mother.....but obviously the human race hasn't a mother ------ Bertrand Russell

When looking at a macroscopic or microscopic level to a question, it exhibits a different attribute, which in this case, mother (chicken) may not be necessary.

Science
A blacksmith shapes iron using iron tools, which means he needs iron instruments to make iron instruments.

Question: Where did the first iron instrument come from?

Answer: The first blacksmith might has used stones, or woods, to shape the first iron instruments.

What does this mean? What gave raise to a sword or an arrow (a child) may not be an iron instruments (mother). Even without an iron instruments (mother), the sword or the arrow (the child) could be raised irregardless.

In the chicken and egg scenario, one thing for sure is the DNA and its RNA are similar and forms the continuation of the life form irregardless of which form comes first, although the egg is more likely to happen first. The nucleic acids and proteins formed a mutual benefit properties that locked within the so called "egg" and giving raise to the life form so called "chicken".

Btw if there are some discussion over this topic using proper science reasoning, why there's no conclusion for it and people still asking?
Religion
More interested with logic and reason (philosophy) and science (dialog with nature), not going to discuss here.

i tot the universe started wth a Big Bang?

No?

Its 12.47am now so my mind abit....not so blur, so i might misunderstood ur concept here

Anyway, to the bold part
If u use the concept of iron piece and iron hammer, the source of origin would be from the nature
However if we back to the topic, we will still loop back to the question: "Where the egg comes from?"
or to my question: "What is the source of origin of an egg?"

Ya, according to the theory of universe existence
Just a theory thru

i tot the universe started wth a Big Bang?

No?

zstan, if we looked at all the PhD dissertations in the world, I believe we will be asking the same questions you asked. Here is a few to look at:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=264822

Its human nature to be curious and frankly I can't see anything wrong with it.