Checking Things Out
Checking Things Out
This posting is very short, but it addresses a question that has puzzled people for years. This question has finally been solved!
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
We begin by defining our terms. Chicken refers to a specific type of bird; it does not refer to an Ostrich or a Hummingbird. On the other hand, the term egg is general. An Ostrich or a Hummingbird may produce an egg but each is vastly different from a chicken-egg. Reptiles such as turtles and snakes also may produce eggs; again very different.
The appearance of the first chicken would be an evolutionary product. Science generally assumes evolution occurs gradually; exceptions, namely mutations, are considered mistakes which may or may not survive. The Urantia Book states evolution produces sudden changes.
From era to era radically new species of animal life arise. They do not evolve as the result of the gradual accumulation of small variations; they appear as full-fledged and new orders of life, and they appear suddenly.
The sudden appearance of new species and diversified orders of living organisms is wholly biologic, strictly natural. There is nothing supernatural connected with these genetic mutations.[1] (Emphasis added)
When this happens for the chicken, we can imagine a chicken ancestor lays an egg, actually a chicken-ancestor-egg, and a true chicken emerges. The chicken, a specific species, came after the egg, a general term. When the question is posed we generally assume the question is: “Which came first, the chicken or the chicken-egg?” Such a proposition is an example of circular logic.
An egg came before the chicken. Case solved.
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The Urantia Book 669:4-5; this refers to the one column edition in the format page:paragraph. ↑