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Chicken vs Egg (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (29 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You can interpret it that way now but that's not the original meanig.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

I understand and respect where you are coming from but i prefer not to rewrite history while arguing about ideas.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the cause and which should be considered the effect

I guess the overtones are a product of their times. Currently, it seems to be: is science/religion the "cause" or "effect".

I always staked claim that it was a "scientific vs philosophical" question; but I never considered how timeline could change the overtones or underlying thinking of "The chicken and the egg" concept. Neat

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 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.

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