…and this is a 
Bleh. MSNBC is running a terrible article that claims they have "proof" that chickens came before eggs. It's just an awful mess, and one of the scientists is at least partly responsible.
The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken.
…
"It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.
No. What they found was a specific molecule called ovocleidin which is a member of a family of C-type lectin-like proteins. These things are all over the place; they're cell adhesion molecules, some are involved in cell signaling, some function in modulating the immune system and blood clotting pathways. They're even found in snake venoms. They're found in everything from C. elegans to mammals. Their key property is that they bind calcium.
In birds, these proteins have been coopted to regulate egg shell formation. They bind calcium and can seed the crystallization of calcium carbonate, and also control the rate of crystal formation. Chickens have ovocleidin, but geese have an ortholog, ansocalcin, and ostriches have struthiocleidin. There seems to be a lot of lability in what particular calcium-binding protein is used in shell formation, and it's probably the case that most of the sequence is free to mutate without affecting the nucleating function.
You simply can't make the conclusion the reporter was making here. The species ancestral to Gallus gallus laid eggs, the last common ancestor of all birds laid eggs, the reptiles that preceded the birds laid eggs…the appearance of egg laying was not coincident with the evolution of ovocleidin. The first chicken that acquired the protein we call ovocleidin now by mutation of a prior protein also hatched from an egg.
What were the people involved in this story thinking?
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: MaleficVTwin
|
July 14, 2010 5:00 PM
They were thinking about all the twits that would see the headline and read their silly piece.
Posted by: Randomfactor
|
July 14, 2010 5:00 PM
You left out a comma after the first word in your final question. The answer is "no."
Posted by: jfbode1029
|
July 14, 2010 5:06 PM
I saw this linked in another forum and thought it had to be a spoof. Then I saw it was MSNBC.
Science journalism at its finest, I tell you...
Posted by: sasqwatch
|
July 14, 2010 5:08 PM
Besides, everybody knows the rooster came first.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
|
July 14, 2010 5:09 PM
Oh sure, just because the chicken coming first would mean that something was wrong with evolution (and reproduction, etc.), you decide that the article is wrong.
Just more Darwinistic derision of rank idiocy. When will the persecution ever cease?
Glen Davidson
Posted by: Free Lunch
|
July 14, 2010 5:13 PM
Science by aphorism. What will they think of next?
Posted by: Dania
|
July 14, 2010 5:15 PM
I hate the expression "scientific proof", but I really wish that was the only problem with this sentence. It's a nonsensical mess from beginning to end.
Posted by: Phodopus
|
July 14, 2010 5:17 PM
Damn it, what is the deal with engineers and science? Please tell me that was a facetious comment by that guy, and the MSNBC crowd messed it up. At least the answer to the question what came first, science or science journalism, seems to be obvious...
Posted by: Sastra
|
July 14, 2010 5:17 PM
Okay, the chicken that came before the egg -- where did that come from?
You don't have to know any biology to see that this entire question is a non-starter, based on the good old-fashioned notion of essentialism -- there is some magic sort of something that all species have, that make it what it is, and not some other species. A chicken is a chicken because it has the essential nature of a chicken. Richard Dawkins called this the "discontinuous mind," and Daniel Dennett pointed the fallacy out in his "First Mammal" problem. There are gradual degrees of change which can only be classified from an historical distance: no bird that was-not-a-chicken laid a chicken and ran away in terror at the new thing it had made. It laid a not-quite-a-chicken-either.
Presumably, the reader is supposed to think that the First Chicken did not hatch from an egg, but was lovingly crafted from chicken-stuff by the Hand of God, and then set forth and ordered to lay eggs hereafter, amen.
Posted by: wccrawford
|
July 14, 2010 5:17 PM
I love the Chicken vs Egg question... I see it as Christianity vs Evolution.
Chicken first - God made it - Christianity
Egg first - Non-chicken had its genetics mutated, laid an egg - Evolution
Of course, I'm still open to the idea that there's another force at work that we haven't discovered yet, but it would have to be pretty special to have stayed unnoticed all this time.
Posted by: jablair51
|
July 14, 2010 5:18 PM
FoxNews covered the story too. The comments are as bad as you'd expect.
Posted by: Kevin Anthoney
|
July 14, 2010 5:20 PM
I usually claim that a chicken egg is a chicken - one that's at an early stage of development - and that the whole question is therefore meaningless.
I get some funny looks at times.
Posted by: Alverant
|
July 14, 2010 5:21 PM
1) Egg-laying animals evolved long before chickens
2) At least MSNBC is reporting science which is more than other "news" organizations can say.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
|
July 14, 2010 5:22 PM
Ray Comfort is surely going to post on this to increase the stupidity level for the story.
Posted by: Duncan
|
July 14, 2010 5:22 PM
The daily mail can be relied upon to be almost always wrong about everything.Of course, the egg came before the chicken, because there were egg-laying animals before chickens. In terms of chickens and their eggs, we still really can't tell which came first. It's just making a point about circular arguments.
Posted by: moochava
|
July 14, 2010 5:27 PM
Perhaps chickens and eggs share a common ancestor, a "chegg," if you will. I'll go dig around in my back yard and see if I can find any chegg fossils.
Posted by: heironymous
|
July 14, 2010 5:29 PM
It's not science. It's an attempt to generate hits or readership or views or whatever (the old jargon was sell papers).
Of course dinosaurs laid eggs and I believe they predated chickens, but then, there's a certain percentage of the populace that don't believe in dinosaurs...
Posted by: Birger Johansson
|
July 14, 2010 5:33 PM
The first stem-amniotes (ancestral to all reptiles, birds and mammals) laid the first eggs, and allowed reproduction to part from the amphibious larval stage. I forgot whether it was in the late Devonian or in the Carboniceous. By early Permian, there were eggs everywhere, thus giving MSNBC eggs all over their faces.
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 5:36 PM
wccrawford, read Sastra's post just above yours.
a "chicken" NEVER hatched from an egg to begin with.
the entire question is a non-starter, exactly as Sastra has pointed out.
Posted by: shreddakj
|
July 14, 2010 5:37 PM
Has the ignorant reporter never heard of evolution? If they have they obviously don't know anything about it.
Posted by: sabend
|
July 14, 2010 5:37 PM
I saw this story on CNN this afternoon, and I was half-confused, and half-angry. It's not that I wasn't already tired of journalists and not-really-journalists "reporting" on scientific discoveries completely inaccurately and unethically. It's that I'm still tired of it.
The question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" is a cliche'd question, the kind you ask little kids to get them thinking, or to just screw with them. I've known for years that it's not a legitimate question--the first chicken was obviously the offspring of something that wasn't quite a chicken as we know it today. Duh, the end.
The worst part is that the stupid question makes the actual science confusing. All that happened was that scientists found an egg-important protein in chicken ovaries.
And the scientists who actually came to that conclusion, that the chicken came first, nees to be fired.
Posted by: gradcook
|
July 14, 2010 5:38 PM
The same story has been reported by Times of India, too. Now despite its claims to the contrary, and despite the fact that it does sometimes proffer "real" news, Times of India is "India's finest news source" in roughly the same way as Onion is USA's, so I thought this was just usual stuff. But now MSNBC too? I might be completely wrong, but I thought MSNBC is a rather more serious news outlet.
Posted by: Travis
|
July 14, 2010 5:40 PM
The comments on that story are pretty painful as well. I regret going over and looking as it has just made me more frustrated and irritated than I wanted to be this evening.
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
|
July 14, 2010 5:41 PM
"Please tell me that was a facetious comment by that guy, and the MSNBC crowd messed it up. "
I'm sure that's exactly what happened. The guy made some glib little joke to wake up the reporter, and the reporter ran with it.
I wonder how many comments we'll have here before someone like "foresight" comes in and claims that this proves chickenism and materialistic science has been defeated.
Posted by: truthspeaker
|
July 14, 2010 5:42 PM
You're completely wrong. I'm not sure there are any serious news outlets in America anymore, although some of the reporters at PBS and NPR still make a token effort (with no help at all from their editors or producers).
Posted by: YetAnotherAtheist
|
July 14, 2010 5:42 PM
Sastra #9:
I had a moment of severe dyslexia and misread this as "lovingly crafted hand-stuffed chicken from God." I immediately thought that this must be the best recipe in the history of mankind. Mmmmm...
Posted by: loocas
|
July 14, 2010 5:42 PM
God's pretty inept if he can't create a simple animal without getting himself tangled in a paradox.
Posted by: eleusis
|
July 14, 2010 5:43 PM
Eggs can't form without ovocleidin from the ovaries, but ovaries can't form without embryos, and embryos can't form without eggs, so that ridiculously naive view solves nothing.
Posted by: Phodopus
|
July 14, 2010 5:49 PM
Really!
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 5:50 PM
I'm not sure there are any serious news outlets in America anymore
hence, sadly, why many of us were berating Jon Stewart, a comedian, for poor news commentary the other night.
*sigh*
Posted by: eleusis
|
July 14, 2010 5:51 PM
The chicken and egg "dilemma" already recognized that eggs are dependent on chickens which are dependent on eggs. So to introduce ovocleiden is merely to add a little detail to the cycle of dependence. You could point out 20 other things that an adult chicken provides for the egg, and that the egg in turn provides for the chicken, but if you take the naive view, it's still the same cyclical dilemma.
You still break out of the cycle either by admitting that, 1) oviparous animals co-evolved with their eggs, or 2) magic happened.
Posted by: Phodopus
|
July 14, 2010 5:52 PM
Coevolve with their eggs, in 6000 years? nevers!
Posted by: Dwpeabody
|
July 14, 2010 5:55 PM
I graduated last year from the chemical engineering department... which is linked quite closely to the materials department. That is rather embarrassing. I hope it was an off the cuff remark. The guy is listed on the web page as Mr. in one place and dr. in another so my guess is he has just completed his PhD.
Posted by: CJO
|
July 14, 2010 5:57 PM
It is, indeed, no way to report on science, but unfortunately in all but a very few lamestream media outlets, it is the only way science ever gets reported. It's all about the hook. No hook, no story. And the hook can be whatever lame cultural or idiomatic reference the reporter or the editor can come up with no matter how tangential or irrelevant. The NYT is hardly immune from this, but by and large their science reporting is pretty good. Anybody else, I usually don't bother. I get my science news from blogs.
Posted by: johnlil#0a224
|
July 14, 2010 5:58 PM
Let's move on to more important questions.
For example, which came first, the bacon or the egg?
Posted by: Phil G
|
July 14, 2010 5:59 PM
I am from Sheffield. The university has a reputation for chemistry and engineering and was once voted the top university in the UK. However, if you want to talk chickens, it's best to talk to my work colleague who liberates caged hens. She will tell you that the needs of the consumer come way before the welfare of the hen.
Posted by: F
|
July 14, 2010 6:00 PM
I don't think they were.
A more likely question:
What were the people involved in this story drinking?
Posted by: jay.sweet
|
July 14, 2010 6:02 PM
I'll repost a paraphrase of what I said over at WEIT: Dr. Freeman wrote a highly technical paper about the arcane subject of embryonic proteins in birds -- and managed to get it picked up by a mainstream national news source. Masterful, really. I bet he gets his grant renewed next year!!
Posted by: Rick Miller
|
July 14, 2010 6:03 PM
Tomorrow: "Quantum Physicist Definitively Counts the Maximum Number of Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin"
Posted by: Dwpeabody
|
July 14, 2010 6:05 PM
"What were the people involved in this story drinking?"
Well this is Sheffield and the students union sells very cheap beer so my guess is they showed the news crews some good old northern hospitality and they all got pissed.
On a side not they have a very good biology department that I hope will smack them upside the head especially since bio/engineering is the uni's big new thing. They just built a huge "Bio Incubator" which I personally have assumed is housing zombies.
Posted by: jay.sweet
|
July 14, 2010 6:07 PM
Re: Sastra at #9... I more or less agree with you, but it's worth pointing out that if you agree beforehand on a non-arbitrary definition of "chicken" (say, it's genome matches some reference Gallus gallus genome above a certain threshold percentage), then the answer has to be that the egg came first, for the reasons others have outlined.
Also, others point out that the question is rarely phrased with chicken egg specified, in which case the answer is quite clearly egg, what with reptiles and dinosaurs and all...
So there are three different ways of interpreting the question. According to two of them, the answer you get is "the egg", and according to the third the entire question is meaningless and unaskable.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893
|
July 14, 2010 6:07 PM
Oh, I don't know, PZ. Seems to me that if a poll reaches a different conclusion, well, you must be wrong. After all, polls don't lie.
MikeM
Posted by: LewisX
|
July 14, 2010 6:08 PM
Sadly, as suspicious as the Daily Mail is as a source on anything, this report can be traced to the University of Sheffield's own media release:
www.sheffield.ac.uk/mediacentre/2010/1706.html
I could well be wrong but I suspect that Dr Colin Freeman couldn't give a stuff about whether the chicken or egg came first. He is more interested in the chemical processes involved.
Posted by: jay.sweet
|
July 14, 2010 6:09 PM
At #41, when I said "non-arbitrary" I meant "arbitrary". Duh. The whole thrust of Sastra's post -- one which I agree with -- is that any sharp division between chicken and non-chicken is completely arbitrary with no meaningful referent to reality. But if you do choose an arbitrary (though ultimately meaningless) definition... It's the egg.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893
|
July 14, 2010 6:12 PM
(Just in case people don't know what I'm talking about, CNN has turned this into a poll. Really. I'm not kidding.)
MikeM
Posted by: technojeff
|
July 14, 2010 6:12 PM
When I was a kid and was asked that question, I never thought of it as a creation vs evolution thing. Although it was asked in hebrew school.
I just thought it was a trick question.... like that "what color was the white horse washington was riding?" You might first think that a chicken has to lay an egg and that's that. but i gave it some thought, and came to the conclusion that something almost a chicken laid the egg that became the first chicken. It just seemed logical if you knew anything about evolution.
Go figure...
Posted by: szwagier.myopenid.com
|
July 14, 2010 6:16 PM
The Daily Mail. It's shit.
Although actually, I need to apologise for offending shit there. At least shit is useful.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
July 14, 2010 6:19 PM
How does this discovery tie in with answering another important question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Posted by: Ted Zissou
|
July 14, 2010 6:19 PM
I would have thought that a pre-chicken would have laid the first chicken egg. Incidentally, it would have been a free range self fed organic cage free pre-chicken.
Posted by: SeeDubya
|
July 14, 2010 6:23 PM
At #44. Unless the arbitrary distinction that defines a chicken is a bird that lays chicken eggs.
Posted by: shalrath239
|
July 14, 2010 6:23 PM
The egg came first of course, by a few hundred million years.
Posted by: SeeDubya
|
July 14, 2010 6:25 PM
At #50. Which makes roosters... ?
Posted by: Ed S
|
July 14, 2010 6:25 PM
Kevin (#12) good point about the egg being the same thing as the chicken. That answers the riddle, the egg always comes first since it's the first outward form of the newly minted chicken, which was no doubt affectionately raised by Mrs. Proto-chicken.
Somewhere up the line, naturally, some early creature must have laid the first true egg, however we define that, and by that definition the creature could be said to have "come first" before the egg. That only happened once, and in the trillions of cases since, the egg always comes first.
Of course, the real way to resolve this question is to ask god himself, except that no one has seen him around for the last 2,000 years or so. Before that, he was much more sociable. Maybe he's on break.
Posted by: articulett
|
July 14, 2010 6:26 PM
Birds come from dinosaurs; dinosaurs laid eggs. The egg came first.
Posted by: LewisX
|
July 14, 2010 6:28 PM
I note many of the media articles running this story call it "ovocledidin" (which is what it is referred to in the University of Sheffield media release - www.sheffield.ac.uk/mediacentre/2010/1706.html) but PZ refers to it as "ovocleidin", as do other biologists (e.g. www.jbc.org/content/early/2004/07/19/jbc.M406033200.full.pdf. Is this another error that has been faithfully reproduced by the media or are the spellings interchangeable?
Posted by: Jason A.
|
July 14, 2010 6:30 PM
So the 'puzzle' has always been 'chickens only hatch from eggs, and eggs only come from chickens.' And they propose to have solved it by simply reiterating 'eggs only come from chickens.' Jebus, that's stupid...
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 6:31 PM
Birds come from dinosaurs; dinosaurs laid eggs. The egg came first.
I'm seeing that people are trying to respond to not one but TWO silly questions that are entirely different:
1. Which came first, the chicken or the egg.
2. Which came first, the chicken or the CHICKEN egg.
the first, silly as it is, is most "reasonably" answered by "oviparity evolved before avians did".
the second has no answer, since it makes no sense to begin with, as there never was a "first chicken" to come out of an egg to begin with.
Posted by: JJ
|
July 14, 2010 6:33 PM
Ugh, I just saw this on Gizmodo which I love for techie news but ALWAYS blows the science...
Posted by: jay.sweet
|
July 14, 2010 6:33 PM
SeeDubya:
You have no idea how much you just pissed me off. I mean that in the most complimentary sense, of course!
Yes, you are quite right. There are arbitrary (though quite absurd) definitions where my assertion breaks down.
If one defines "chicken egg" genomically, and defines "chicken" as "an organism capable of laying a chicken egg", then it's quite possible the first chicken sprang into being when one of a now-ex-proto-chicken's gametes was created with a transcription error. (Unless the mutation occurred post-fertilization, I suppose)
Goddamit. As accurate as Sastra's "the question is stupid" position is, I had been quite fond of the overly-clever "chicken egg laid by a proto-chicken" position. But if that position now has to endorse a specific class of meaningless and arbitrary definitions of "chicken", it's not so appealing.
Posted by: Bjørn Østman
|
July 14, 2010 6:37 PM
Really, this falls on Dr. Freeman, who is an engineer!
There are so many arguments why Freeman is wrong.
Semantics: it really should be, "what came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?" Otherwise the answer is obviously the egg.
But even if the question is about the chicken egg, then we have to remember that the egg is the chicken. It's just an early developmental stage. Keeping that in mind, the question is akin to asking "what came first, the baby or the adult?" which is clearly absurd.
Posted by: MetzO'Magic
|
July 14, 2010 6:41 PM
Oh, they believe in dinosaurs alright. They just don't buy into the hundreds of millions of years ago bit. Or the fact that the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, and always has been.
These are likely the same people that believe The Flintstones is a documentary.
Posted by: Falyne, FCD
|
July 14, 2010 6:48 PM
This was mentioned as a weird insert in the horrible, horrible CNN "Off The Radar" segment on thermodynamic gravity I mentioned in the Endless Thread, which just added to the (already great) confusion.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/episode_lxxix_american_splendo.php#comment-2657961
Seriously, it was like:
"Oh yeah, this throws Newton out the window. I mean, he existed, but no apples or anything..."
"Oh by the way, did you hear how they've proved that the chicken came first, as in the chicken and the egg? Blahblahblah ok, back to how gravity doesn't really exist"
Posted by: SteveM
|
July 14, 2010 6:49 PM
I think the only way to interpret the chicken vs egg question in anything like a reasonable way is to concentrate on the egg itself and what defines it as a chicken egg. Is it that it contains a chicken or is it that it was produced by a chicken?
I do not think that can be answered scientifically, it is purely semantics. [in my opinion]
Posted by: John Harshman
|
July 14, 2010 6:50 PM
Hey PZ. I have a question nobody seems to have considered. How much do we actually know about the taxonomic distribution of ovocleidin? So far we know that chickens have it, while "geese" (a poorly defined term, that) and ostriches do not. What other galliforms have been checked? Other _Gallus_ speicies? Other phasianids? Other anseriforms than the unspecified "goose"? I would be moderately surprised if this protein were newly evolved in the domestic chicken lineage, or even in the Red Jungle Fowl lineage.
Just doing my bit to add to the abject silliness of the press release. For shame, Sheffield.
Posted by: RamblinDude
|
July 14, 2010 6:52 PM
As I clicked on this post, not one minute ago, the story came on NBC Nightly News. Yep, Brian Williams says the chicken came first, so there ya go.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
|
July 14, 2010 6:56 PM
Either this is proof that PZ has no sense of humor, or he has such a dry sense of humor that it defeats us mere mortals.
Really now, are you trying to suck in trolls or are you being paid in outrage dollars?
Posted by: meghan.ames
|
July 14, 2010 6:56 PM
As I noted to PZ in my email about this article, this "scientific" article read like a really bad version of Ibn Sina's unmoved mover argument. For there to be a chicken there must have been an egg. But these "scientists" argue the chicken must have created the egg, which begs the question of where that original chicken came from. I guess since it didn't come from an egg, it must have always been. Maybe god is a chicken after all.
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 7:10 PM
Really, this falls on Dr. Freeman, who is an engineer!
I'm sorry, but SOMEONE has to ask...
Is his first name Gordon?
Posted by: Weed Monkey
|
July 14, 2010 7:25 PM
You should know better, doctor Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist. :)
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 7:26 PM
...and professional ass kicker.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
|
July 14, 2010 7:26 PM
I thought ansa meant duck. But struds is Danish for ostrich.This has been your etymological digression for today.
Posted by: Nitin_engineer_India
|
July 14, 2010 7:56 PM
Suppose there is a stone which looks like an egg which is considered as non-living. Then at some particular time in the history of universe, one element added to that stone and it became non-living to living just as in few cases we observe that people after death (confirmed by scientific machinery)again gain life i.e. conversion from non-living to living. This event does possess some probability. And then the cycle started.
Some people define that element which differentiate between living and non-living as 'soul' and some as 'observer'. Hence, the egg came 1st.
But one who say that a chicken appeared suddenly,then they have to say a couple of chicken (male/female)came suddenly. Then only they can form an egg. Don't you think so...??
Posted by: Yubal
|
July 14, 2010 8:00 PM
Why does nobody answer the REAL scientific question:
Chicken or egg, which one should I cook first?!?
Posted by: SteveM
|
July 14, 2010 8:11 PM
Chicken or egg, which one should I cook first?!?
traditionally it's eggs for breakfast and chicken for dinner, so I'd say that is cooking eggs first.
Posted by: Dave The Happy Singer
|
July 14, 2010 8:17 PM
"said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail."
"according to the Mail."
"the Mail"
^ That's your skeptics' red flag right there.
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 8:19 PM
traditionally it's eggs for breakfast and chicken for dinner, so I'd say that is cooking eggs first.
what if it's dinnertime where they are?
do they have to wait until next day breakfast before they can cook something to eat?
;)
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 14, 2010 8:21 PM
Suppose there is a stone which looks like an egg which is considered as non-living. Then at some particular time in the history of universe, one element added to that stone and it became non-living to living just as in few cases we observe that people after death (confirmed by scientific machinery)again gain life i.e. conversion from non-living to living. This event does possess some probability. And then the cycle started.
Is it me, or is that a great example of word salad?
Posted by: Sastra
|
July 14, 2010 8:21 PM
nitin_engineer_India #72 wrote:
I can't "suppose" that, unless it's meant to be a fantasy story. No one element added to a stone turns it into a living biological thing.
I don't understand this analogy. Nobody has ever been brought back from the "dead" -- if "dead" is defined as cessation of all life.
There's no element that distinguishes life, from non-life. That sounds like vitalism. Vitalism is, scientifically speaking, dead.
It's still alive in religion, of course, but the rules are different there. They get to make stuff up.
Posted by: SeeDubya
|
July 14, 2010 8:26 PM
Dinner must have been had first in order for you to break a fast, no? Therefore I say the chicken is cooked first.
Posted by: mortal
|
July 14, 2010 8:32 PM
The egg came first.
"Then what laid the egg?"
An animal that was almost exactly, but not quite a chicken.
Posted by: Peter H
|
July 14, 2010 8:45 PM
In the NBC text version of the story, the adverb "purportedly" seems to play a vital role. Perhaps the Sheffield folk had found a gullible reported and are still snarking up their sleeves.
As for "Why did the chicken cross the road?" To prove to the armadillo it could be done. Texas joke there.
Posted by: John Harshman
|
July 14, 2010 9:14 PM
Say, when did it become customary to give orthologous proteins different names in different species in the same class? Wouldn't this result in massive confusion? Are ovocleidin and ansocalcin truly orthologous? How about struthiocleidin?
Posted by: momus
|
July 14, 2010 9:41 PM
According to Pascal Boyer's blog, 95% of crackpot physicists are male engineers with advanced degrees. Perhaps they are trying for similar levels in biology. If they can just overtake the dentists!
Posted by: Rheb-El
|
July 14, 2010 10:08 PM
I am a high school science teacher that stresses to my students that popular journalism is NOT a valid source of scientific information. As soon as I read this article online this morning, my mind felt bleached--just bad reporting. I have consistently answered my students' question about the chicken and the egg with an emphatic (evolutionary) answer of the egg. I only wish more of my peers would follow science blogs to get more attuned to reality!
Posted by: Samantha
|
July 14, 2010 10:15 PM
Not having had the time to read all 85 comments, I still feel the need to say this:
Why are they making the assumption that just because the protein (ovocleidin) is CURRENTLY only found in the ovaries of chickens, it couldn't have previously been found in other species? Clearly they couldn't have tested every type of egg-laying animal ever existent, so why do they make the assumption that the egg had to be formed by a chicken? This is even simpler than the idea that a different protein could have been used in the creation of the first chicken egg.
Sometimes, the single-mindedness of people astonishes me.
Posted by: Peter H
|
July 14, 2010 10:19 PM
Rheb-El, somehow I get the inference that you are not teaching in the Stone-Age regions of the U.S. Keep up the good work; point your students to sites such as this whenever you can. I can understand why nervous school administrators (most of whom know little or nothing of teaching or learning) will block these sites on school-wide connections. But the kids hear stuff far worse - in both taste & content - in the cafeteria, locker room and hallways every single day. Nearly all of them can get around parental blocks by visiting via friend's computer. Tell them of the garbage, but tell them of the avenues leading to reliable, stimulating ideas. If they're half-balanced, they'll get over the titter-titter stage pretty fast.
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
|
July 14, 2010 10:30 PM
Hey, you know what's weird? We never eat chicken and eggs together. We eat eggs with sausage and bacon and even steak, but not any kind of fowl. Is that a taboo or something?
And what's the deal with airline peanuts?
Posted by: Peter H
|
July 14, 2010 11:19 PM
You mean airlines still got peanuts? Last few times I flew, thought I'd starve. Them pretzels ain't fit for pigeons.
Posted by: Judy L.
|
July 14, 2010 11:19 PM
I've always thought that the egg must have come before the chicken, as the chicken is merely the means by which the egg make more eggs, which is the egg's biological raison d'être, no? Of course, it's not as if the egg came into existence fully formed like Athena popping from the head of Zeus.
Posted by: NerdySkeptic
|
July 14, 2010 11:34 PM
Reptiles laid eggs. Birds evolved from one class of reptiles. Thus eggs came before birds of any kind, whether the chicken or the vulture.
Period!
Posted by: A. Noyd
|
July 14, 2010 11:39 PM
Rey Fox (#87)
It's not taboo in Japan. You can get oyakodon just about everywhere there. Means "parent and child over rice."
Posted by: Ellie
|
July 14, 2010 11:46 PM
Good blog post deconstructing this horror show here: http://goo.gl/nDFs
Looks like it was triggered by an innocent jokeish in the university press release blown out of all proportion by the press (of course) and then some collaborator decided to jump on the band wagon and get their 15 minutes of fame. That person is a fool and this will have done more to harm their scientific reputation than any act in their career so far.
The worst thing about this is the view it give the public of what scientists do. We really need to find a way of distancing ourselves from dodgy "science" journalism :/
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
|
July 14, 2010 11:51 PM
"It's not taboo in Japan. You can get oyakodon just about everywhere there. Means "parent and child over rice.""
Thank you, Japan, for creeping me out again.
Posted by: Frank b
|
July 15, 2010 12:08 AM
Red Fox, you can have chicken in your egg salad sandwich. You can have eggwhite in your batter that you fry chicken in. You can have sliced hard boiled egg in your tossed salad topped with grilled chicken. Pardon me while I go to the kitchen for a snack.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
|
July 15, 2010 12:23 AM
As has been pointed out to you, it depends on who you exclude by "we". I do believe I've had deviled eggs and chicken (probably even wings) on the same plate before, and I've also had fried rice with chicken and egg in it and mayonnaise on a chicken sandwich.
Posted by: truthspeaker
|
July 15, 2010 12:49 AM
I don't know if I've ever had an omelet with chicken in it, but I've definitely stir fried chicken and eggs together. I may even have used egg in batter for chicken. OK now I want fried chicken.
Paul Simon claims the song "Mother and Child Reunion" was inspired by a similar Chinese dish.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
|
July 15, 2010 12:56 AM
Rey Fox:
I've had chicken and eggs together, in the form of an omelet. Chicken isn't much used as a breakfast meat (in the U.S. at least) because it tends to be mild (depending on preparation, of course) and doesn't contrast a great deal, taste wise, with eggs.
Southern biscuits with a white gravy with shredded chicken in it and eggs makes a fab breakfast, btw.
Posted by: Kagato
|
July 15, 2010 1:04 AM
Or to put it another way:
Posted by: Usagichan
|
July 15, 2010 1:11 AM
A Noyd @91
Indeed, and at about half the price of a McDonalds meal (and far tastier, even at places like Matsuya or Yoshinoya) its a big favourite for our cheap family lunches... I can even rustle up a passable version myself at home (when it comes to the boiling, the chicken definitely goes first ;)).
Chicken and egg go together like... er... what goes well together? Ah yes, like bacon and babies (well maybe not quite that nice, but...)
Posted by: jcmartz.myopenid.com
|
July 15, 2010 1:18 AM
I wonder if creationists will twist it for their own nefarious purposes.
Posted by: Kyorosuke
|
July 15, 2010 1:26 AM
Kagato @ 98:
BORN FROM AN EGG ON A MOUNTAINTOP!
:D
Posted by: Kagato
|
July 15, 2010 1:41 AM
And here's the Western version
Posted by: jahigginbotham
|
July 15, 2010 1:45 AM
@87 et al
Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion"
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/mother.asp
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 15, 2010 2:02 AM
We really need to find a way of distancing ourselves from dodgy "science" journalism
I know! Let's ask Chris Mooney!
Posted by: MadScientist
|
July 15, 2010 3:04 AM
Obviously the chicken must have also come before all its reptilian ancestors because those ancestors could not have possibly produced an egg without the presence of a chicken ovary. In fact no contemporary reptile actually lays eggs - that's merely an illusion - it's impossible because they obviously don't have chicken ovaries.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlqXtFYmEhGhi7sIgXuuLxpCm5U65u8x0c
|
July 15, 2010 3:51 AM
Okay, I haven't read all of the comments due to time, but the thing that worries me is that MSNBC got their news from the DAILY MAIL!!!! Any of you Britons out there know how bad this is. This is like Fox News, if it was run by Cheney. Fearmongering and idiocy at it's worst.
As evidence, here is a popular viral video that details exactly how terrible the Daily Mail is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlqXtFYmEhGhi7sIgXuuLxpCm5U65u8x0c
|
July 15, 2010 3:53 AM
Sorry, that should read "MSNBC got their "NEWS" from..."
-erin.pat.mac
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
|
July 15, 2010 4:44 AM
Sad to say, but university PR people routinely mangle the results of their own researchers in sending out press releases, just like in this case. They're the ones at fault here, more than the media outlets (bad as they are).
Posted by: windy
|
July 15, 2010 7:07 AM
It would have been pretty funny as a scientist in-joke, but as science communication, not so much. Sort of like the "fruit bats give fellatio" article.
Posted by: ralph.hartley
|
July 15, 2010 8:00 AM
That maybe, just maybe, someone has a sense humor? I know it seems far fetched, but stranger things have happened.
Yes, I'm sure they said it all with a straight face; the joke doesn't work otherwise. It's actually the people who take that kind of joke seriously that make them funny.
I'm afraid the humor is mostly at your expense. Sorry.
Posted by: stuart.colin
|
July 15, 2010 8:00 AM
@JJ
Engadget Alt has reported this as well now, even after Gizmodo corrected their article.
Posted by: Janey Mack
|
July 15, 2010 8:32 AM
They were thinking that being cutesie had something to do with science? Or maybe, they just thought they were being cutesie.
Btw, I went to CNN to look for the poll mentioned above, which I didn't find, but I did find an article about the chicken/egg announcement. The headline--along the ones of "the Chicken Came First"--had an asterisk, which referenced to "Or did it?--the Editor." And if you yawn your way through most of the article--maybe I'm just yawning because it's after 5 am and I haven't been to bed yet--you do finally come to a quote from Freeman where he says, in essence, "let's not be too hasty here." So I would assume that the idiocy is the fault of a reporter somewhere along the line, and then multiplied by other reporters who thought it sounded good.
Posted by: Brad Anderson
|
July 15, 2010 8:58 AM
As soon as I saw that story, I hoped you'd write on it. I thought it sounded tricksy and false.
Posted by: derelicthat
|
July 15, 2010 11:31 AM
So this is what started my coworkers off on a crazy tangent this morning. They came up to me asking if an ostrich born in an egg that a kangaroo laid is an ostrich or a kangaroo. Seriously. I asked what they were trying to do here, and they claimed it as a perfectly valid and pertinent biological question. I don't even know where to start picking that one apart.
Posted by: woodsong
|
July 15, 2010 1:09 PM
Yeesh. Talk about idiotic reporting!
I don't remember who brought up the chicken-and-egg question to me (I was 11 or 12), but my snap answer without much thought was along the lines of "Duh. Lots of things lay eggs. You think something gave live-birth to the first chicken?"
I still think that was a pretty good snappy answer.
And I have a great recipe for a chicken-and-egg dish.
Chicken Chagurtma
Carmelize some onions (1 lb.)
Add your chicken (bite-sized pieces) (1 lb)
When the chicken starts to cook, pour on some lemon juice (~1 tbsp). Stir and add another shot of lemon juice after a few minutes.
Coat mixture heavily with cinnamon and stir. Repeat this step 2-3 times.
When chicken pieces are thoroughly cooked, sprinkle once with dill weed, mix in 2 raw eggs, and stir until egg is cooked.
Serve on rice with feta cheese.
I'm told the recipe originates in Soviet Georgia. Although I can't seem to find it online (my spelling may be at fault here).
Posted by: Owlmirror
|
July 15, 2010 2:58 PM
Kangaroo ovaries produce kangaroo eggs. Did someone put ostrich ovaries into a kangaroo, or did the egg magically transform?
If the ostrich ovaries were transplanted (and the egg presumable fertilized), then it doesn't matter if the egg was laid by a kangaroo. The egg came from ostrich ovaries, so it's an ostrich.
If it was by magic, then it doesn't matter if it was laid by a kangaroo. It's still an ostrich.
As an analogy, if someone magically creates an ostrich egg out of a rock, is the ostrich that hatches a rock, or is it an ostrich?
If someone magically creates an ostrich egg out of nothing, is the ostrich that hatches nothing, or is it an ostrich?
/ask a silly question, get a pedantic answer.
Posted by: Margaret
|
July 15, 2010 3:51 PM
The phrasing of this question ("the" chicken, "the" egg) reeks of essentialism. To a goddist it means "Which did our god create first?" and is meant to confound scientists. In the real world we need to ask "Which chicken(s)?" and "Which egg(s)?" so we can transform the question into either
orThe only thing the original question is good for is pointing out how deeply embedded essentialism is in our everyday language, even for those of us who aren't Platonists or religious.
Posted by: Harbo
|
July 16, 2010 8:46 AM
Does anyone remember the old joke about the chicken and the egg in bed together.
The egg is smoking a cigarette and says...
"well that solves that question"
Posted by: tlsquyres
|
July 17, 2010 3:39 AM
For logic's sake-if there's just eggs, who's going to sit on them?
Posted by: monado
|
July 18, 2010 12:24 AM
First, to beg the question is different from to raise the question. To beg the question is to assume your conclusion in some manner. It includes circular reasoning, assuming that someone is guilty, or assuming a certain definition.
I was going to mention "Mother & Child Reunion" but I see that someone has beat me to it.
Posted by: the procrastinator
|
July 18, 2010 12:23 PM
I was thinking pterodactyls till I started thinking laterally. The experiment was about CHICKENS & THEIR eggs. Obviously,eggs were first,evolutionarily,but in relation to this,scientifically,not metaphorically,the chicken had to come 1st to produce a chicken's egg. If we're going to look at it from a spiritual view,well,that's a whole other ball game. The scientists at Warwick Uni aren't wrong,within their field. But they have not solved the age old riddle,for that is what it is. It's just that the question was posed,originally,as philosophical,rather than literal,as a means to assess the level of a person's wisdom. If they went & contemplated for days,their answer would obviously show the depth of their knowledge. Laymen usually ask the question,not realising what the question means.
Posted by: the procrastinator
|
July 18, 2010 12:25 PM
I meant wisdom,not knowledge,in my last post.
Posted by: the procrastinator
|
July 18, 2010 12:30 PM
The scientists at Warwick are obviously taking the question from the ordinary man on the street's point of view. They have proved a point,just not realised that it was never meant to be about science.
Posted by: dannyburton
|
July 18, 2010 5:31 PM
The trouble is the difference between the languages - hard science vs creative. The scientist (never really ones for understanding the flexibility of language) is taking the headline literally. D'OH!
The chicken egg analogy is obviously a reference to the old cliched question, and the deviation from the norm - giving a definitive (and counter-intuitive) answer - is a creative way to draw people into the article, from where they will actually learn something about the science.
It's a little patronising to assume people'll be misled, as I'm sure anyone who's not a creationist would look at the provocative statement and immediately have the response forming "But what about dinosaurs?"
The best analogy would be with a headline: "Finally! Why the chicken crossed the road." for the article was about bird migration routes.
Scientists need to learn more about how language is used outside of research articles and text-books, AS WELL as journalists and writers needing more education about science.
Posted by: Ichthyic
|
July 18, 2010 5:39 PM
The scientist (never really ones for understanding the flexibility of language) is taking the headline literally. D'OH!
man, that is one serious fail on your part.
Posted by: dannyburton
|
July 18, 2010 6:30 PM
lmao! that'll teach me, i read the original press release a few days ago, and didn't realise what a hash the msnbc 'article' had done... although it can hardly be called an article eh? it's a report of a (daily mail ffs) report of a press release about a bit of research.
they might have at least cleared up that the protein production within the chicken means that "today's chicken" comes before "today's chicken egg".
i guess a proto-chicken used a different, similar protein to produce a proto-chicken egg.
chinese whispers a la 'journalism' - my last comment stands as a general thing, but not a specific defence of the article!
(although the use of lots of 'purportedly' and 'apparently' disclaimers, plus the link to the original paper is something)
Posted by: rubberband
|
August 5, 2010 11:19 AM
I think a much more intriguing take on the research is, “Can newly identified eggshell-making protein be used to combat global warming?”
Maybe I’m missing some key point here, but rapid, low-energy formation of CaCO2 might be one way to sequester the carbon dioxide that is dissolving in (and altering the pH of) our oceans.
Do we know the gene responsible for OC-17? Can multiple copies be put into a limited-life plankton?
Or am I talking “mad scientist” stuff here?