Which Came First: The Chicken or the Egg?

July 16th, 2010 by Michael Bowler

Ah, the million dollar question: Which came first: the chicken or the egg? I’ve heard all sorts of interesting arguments as far as that was concerned. I always believed it was the chicken, because I simply thought it was logical that something had to lay the egg. End of story, right? I thought so, but way back in middle school, some of my friends and classmates came up with some odd reasons why I was wrong. Depending on your perspective level, you may have had either answer, and one of many thousands of reasons behind it.

Every question has an answer, and scientists have discovered the answer for this one. I was watching Fox News last night. (I watch all sorts of local and national news, so I can get all sides of a story before making a decision or considering something truth.) Sean Hannity broke the story, albeit probably not first, but I heard him first. According to researchers from Sheffield and Warwick universities in England, who laid out their findings in the paper, “Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein,” there is a protein found exclusively in the ovaries of a chicken that is responsible for the formation of the shell of the egg. This protein, called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17), is specifically made to expedite the formation of the shell of the egg. They apparently used a supercomputer to zoom in on the formation of an egg and realized the OC-17 protein speeds up the crystallization process, essentially converting calcium carbonate into the calcite crystals that make up the egg shell.

This is where it gets humorous, if it hasn’t already. Dr Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University’s Department of Engineering Materials, baffled me by saying, “it had long been suspected that the egg came first, but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first.” Really? The egg was suspected to have come first? Please explain that, because I do not get it. Here is my theory as to why that is completely idiotic: The egg has to be formed and laid by a creature. I knew that when I was a child. It also needs to be fertilized by a rooster. You need TWO creatures to actually lay and hatch an egg. The chicken lays the egg. The rooster comes around behind her, and fertilizes it, by whatever method the rooster uses to do the task. (I do not desire to learn any more about the fertilization process, nor would I publish it. I pride myself on being family friendly, in case of necessity.)

Common sense always told me that the egg has to come from somewhere. We have two theories on the orientation of the world and all the creatures in it, creation and evolution. Both of these theories provide for the creation of many of the creatures on this planet, but not for the creation of fertilized eggs, ready to hatch. However, there is one last point I have not heard anyone make: how stupid this study is. I just hope that nobody’s tax dollars paid for this study.

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