"Did the chicken or the egg come first?" This question is a historical and scientific one: was there an egg that preceded any chicken? Or was there a chicken that predated any egg?
I believe that if species distinctions are determined by genotype and evolutionary pathways, then the chances of a chicken preceding an egg are slim.
Evolutionists distinguish between genotypes and phenotypes in the genetic characteristics of organisms. The genotype refers to the genetic information carried by an individual, while the phenotype refers to the result of that genetic information being expressed in the organism. The genetic information carried by gametes formed by meiosis is determined by the genotype of an individual, not the phenotype.
The genotype of an individual is fixed at the time of fertilisation and is hardly affected by acquired factors, which is why the first generation of mated rats with their tails cut off still have tails. If food intake is inadequate, even if one has the gene for easy growth, one will not actually grow to a hundred and eighty, and if there is irreversible external damage, even if one has the gene for ten fingers, one will not actually keep ten fingers for life.
The method of defining species is a matter of debate in biology, but there is a not insignificant body of opinion suggesting that we should use genotypes to distinguish between species: when two individuals are genotypically similar to a certain extent (or similar in important ways), they belong to the same species; when two individuals are genotypically different to a certain extent (or different in important ways), they belong to two species.
So we can make the original question clearer.
Is there an egg of the chicken species that predates the existence of any chicken of the chicken species?
Was there a chicken of the species that existed before any egg of the species?
Since, according to evolution (or those studies which are based on evolution), we know that the ancestors of birds were oviparous reptiles, it is obvious that the answer to the second question is no: there can be no such thing as x, such that x is a chicken and all eggs exist later than x. If x is a chicken, then x is a chicken. Because if x is a chicken, given the taxonomy discussed above, x must have a particular set of genotypes (it is this set of genotypes that assigns x to the species 'chicken'), and because x's ancestor laid eggs, there is a high probability that x came from an egg, and because genotypes do not change during development, the egg that hatched from x must have the same genotype as x, i.e. That is, the egg that hatches from x must be a chicken egg. Therefore, if x is a chicken, then there must have been an egg before x.
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