Egg came first, 'eggsperts' agree
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Friday, May 26, 2006; Posted: 7:33 a.m. EDT (11:33 GMT)
LONDON, England - It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg? Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg. Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life. Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken(, probably in prehistoric times,) must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg. Professor (John) Brookfield, a specialist (in evolutionary genetics) at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear. (The living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said. "Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first." The same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns. Mr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens. He told PA people were mistaken if they argued that the mutant egg belonged to the "non-chicken" bird parents. "I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," he said. "If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg." Bourns, chairman of trade body Great British Chicken, said he was also firmly in the pro-egg camp. He said: "Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs." The debate, which may come as a relief to those with argumentative relatives, was organized by Disney to promote the release of the film "Chicken Little" on DVD.)
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![](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41690000/jpg/_41690932_chickenandeggbody.jpg)
*genetic material: 유전 형질(形質).
*pecking order: (새의) 쪼는 순위; (조직·사회의) 서열, 계층 (조직).
닭과 달걀 토론 해독
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오랜 시간 동안 과학자, 학자 및 선술집의 해묵은 주제로 아주 난처하게 괴롭힌 건 "닭이 먼저냐, 달걀이 먼저냐"하는 이 한가지 질문이었습니다. 이제 유전학자들, 철학자들 그리고 양계업자들로 구성된 한 단체가 답을 구한 것 같다고 주장합니다. 바로 계란이었습니다. 간단히 말해 그 이유는 유전 형질이 동물의 일생 중 변하지 않는다는 사실에 귀착되기 때문이죠. 따라서 우리가 닭이라 부르는 새로 진화된 최초의 조류는 처음에 계란 속의 수정체로 존재했음에 틀림없습니다. Nottingham대학교의 전문의 Brookfield교수는 영국 언론협회와의 회견에서 순서가 분명했다고 말했습니다.
London (
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