Chicken or egg?
By Greg Spearritt
The age-old conundrum has been solved! And no, it’s not one of those unsatisfying answers, like ‘it’s chickens and eggs all the way down’. (Spoiler alert for what’s below.)
Infinite Life: A Revolutionary Story of Eggs, Evolution and Life on Earth by Jules Howard is due for publication in September this year, and it looks like a cracker.
Meanwhile, Jules Howard has a teaser to get us thinking:
the concept of “chicken” only exists because there is an upright ape on this planet with a kink for categories and a fondness for labelling things as they stand at this precise geological moment in Earth’s history. And what are animals, really? Are animals organisms that produce eggs in order to make more animals? Or are animals the vessels that eggs use, in an evolutionary way, to make more eggs?
So what’s the answer? If you’re into spoilers… it’s eggs, but only by a billion years or so.
Disclaimer: views represented in SOFiA blog posts are entirely the view of the respective authors and in no way represent an official SOFiA position. They are intended to stimulate thought, rather than present a final word on any topic.
Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash
