The chicken-or-egg enigma, a slight return

 While wandering through the Humane Society of Forsyth County thrift store, I found a hardcover copy of Wendy Northcutt’s The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action (with dust jacket) in their book section, for the bargain price of $1.

Years ago while working in the corporate world, I laughed along with my “techie” co-workers at the travails of the award “nominees” and “winners” on emails we used to circulate. So I snapped up the available copy, finding it to be in excellent condition.

The Darwin Award famously acknowledges the acts of individuals who inadvertently”added a little chlorine into the gene pool.” The winner usually receives the award posthumously, for what it’s worth.

Maybe it’s just me, but reading these stories about human beings killing and maiming themselves with a single, stupid mistake doesn’t strike me as funny anymore. Not when I know real people are dying, and leaving behind grieving family members.

I will be donating my copy back to the thrift store. I can’t bring myself to just throw it away because it can potentially raise another dollar for the Humane Society.

And reading the book wasn’t a total complete of time. It caught my attention when, in one aside to the reader, the author posed and answered the existential chicken-or-the-egg question.

Author Northcutt boldly wrote,

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? According to evolution theory, the egg did. New species evolve when mutations in parental reproductive cells result in offspring with unique traits. The fertilized egg is the first member of a new species, so the egg comes before the chicken.

Very interesting.

I remembered that while writing as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner, I published a couple of articles that explored the old existential philosophical question — specifically, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The British researchers mentioned in that article said they had scientifically proved the chicken came first. Since the article was published by MSNBC, it must be true, right? You can’t have it both ways.

Actually, Jack Horner said neither the British scientists nor Northcutt were correct.

The self-proclaimed “real star” of Jurassic Park theorized that the dinosaur came first, as what he called the chickenosaurus. And he announced that he plans to prove it.

Unlike the character from the nursery rhyme, Jack Horner won’t be pulling a plum out of his Christmas pie, if he succeeds with his experiment. He’ll be pulling something less pleasant out from an even darker recess. I won’t be holding my breath….

The biggest problem is, Horner’s claim depends on Darwin’s theory actually working on macro scale, filling in the Big Picture. His theory assumes a creator God cannot exist.

Jerry Coyne can prattle on about why evolution is true as long as he pleases, and the entire world can believe it — but I steadfastly refuse, precisely because of the chicken-and-the-egg problem.

Of course, I have other reasons: there are thousands of NDEs, ghosts, psychics, and detailed records regarding religious memorabilia such as the tilma of Juan Diego that defy all logic, and must be completely ignored in order to seriously entertain Darwinism.

The assumption that no supernatural realm could possibly exist without bothering to investigate the body of evidence supporting these claims amounts to willful ignorance.

If Coyne is right and evolution is really true, then at some point in time, two creatures that were not chickens had to engage in sexual relations, producing an egg containing the first chicken.

If Horner ever succeeded, it would force me to revise my ideas about the limits of modern biology. But even such an amazing feat would not eliminate my obligation to the truth that I also investigate the available body of evidence supporting belief in the supernatural.

If the first two chickens were not born of eggs, but “evolved” into sexually paired and compatible creatures approximating chickens that sexually reproduced in order to produce an egg containing a chicken, that would be an interesting fact to note. Or, if a hen and rooster “spontaneously evolved” to copulate and lay an egg containing the first chicken, that would also be interesting. The problem is, there is no way to know what really happened. It’s an exercise in futility.

No matter how you slice it, to create the first chicken, every known law of modern biology was violated. Nothing makes sense.

Unless, of course, we consider the possibility that a creator God created the hen, and the rooster.