On 29 May 2006 17:33:07 -0700, "Blair P. Houghton"
> wrote:

>
>Curly Sue wrote:
>> On Sun, 28 May 2006 20:50:22 -0700, isw > wrote:
>>
>> >Egg-laying reptiles predated birds by a bunch of millions of years. Any
>> >"scientist" who just figured that out ought to turn in his union card.
>>
>> So what you're saying is that question should have been: which came
>> first, the lizard (or fish) or the egg?
>
>Well, technically, the "egg" goes back to our days as single-celled
>organisms (bacteria, et al).

Irrelevant and incorrect.

(a) The chicken-and-egg debate is referring to chicken eggs -- not the
eggs from any earlier organism. Otherwise, the whole thing is trivial.

(b) Bacteria don't have eggs. Eggs are a byproduct of sex. Bacteria do
not come in male and female -- this simply divide. No sex -- no eggs.

>Since then there have been refinements, such as eggs that could become
>multi-celled organisms*
>
>I think the semantic hair the panel split was that it's not a chicken
>until the thing coming out is a chicken, and before that it's something
>else. And the determination is that the parents of the first chicken
>weren't chickens, genetically speaking.

But their eggs were chicken eggs, otherwise they would not have
developed into a chicken. So I think you just proved that the eggs
came first.

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