Science can only produce compelling evidence based on what we see empirically. Evolution provides compelling evidence. No true scientist is saying this is any âconclusionâ since no one can know what is conclusive beyond what is empirically compelling. There may be compelling evidence against Adam and Eve, but that does not negate the possibility of divine design. No empirical data is available to prove or disprove divine design. All that science can do is present the data and over time science can either add to or take away from the mountain of evidence pointing in some direction, even though no one knows where that direction eventually leads to. Yes, many scientists âgameâ their research to get ahead, by finding anything to support the trendy theories. This is similar to growing rants about the prejudicial malpractice going on in Law, Journalism, and Education. Even in hard science, if you have data that goes against the conventional prejudice of the evolution of species you will be ignored, and ignoring is a practice of ignorance, which is scientific malpractice. Nevertheless, the mountain of evidence stands and the chicken came from an almost-chicken egg laid by an almost-chicken.
Evidence is not compelling. An argument can be compelling, but not evidence itself. What evolutionary theorists try to do is pound evidence into a pattern to fit their preconceived theories... Your "almost chicken" and "almost egg" are more fantasies, lacking evidential proof.
ZZZzz !! A chicken with 4 legs. Was the mother a four legged creature? no. Rest my case. ******************************* How did the chicken cross the road? With four legs POSTED: 7:59 a.m. EDT, September 23, 2006 SOMERSET, Pennsylvania (AP) -- -- Henrietta the chicken was living inconspicuously among 36,000 other birds at Brendle Farms for 18 months -- until a foreman noticed she had four legs. "It's as healthy as the rest," the farm's owner, Mark Brendle, told The Daily American. Brendle's 13-year-old daughter, Ashley, named the chicken Henrietta after the discovery Thursday. The bird has two normal front legs and, behind those, two more feet. They are of a similar size to her front legs but don't function. The chicken drags her extra feet behind her at the farm in in Somerset, Pennsylvania. In 30 years of farming, Brendle said, he's never before seen a chicken with four legs. There's no definitive reason why such deformities happen, said Cliff Thompson, a retired professor of genetics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. He said it could be an accident of development, akin to a sixth toe on a cat. Brendle said he jokingly suggested to his family that it sell Henrietta in an Internet auction, but Ashley objected. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/23/4legged.chicken.ap/index.html
I think you're all making this question too difficult, because it's been around for so long, and people believe that it is an irresolvable paradox. However, the issue is actually fairly simple to resolve: 1. A group of non-chickens became geographically isolated from some other non-chickens. 2. Over a period of many generations, small mutations in the genetic makeup of the group, aggregated until the isolated non-chickens were no longer capable of breeding with the group from which they were isolated. 3. At the moment the mutations were sufficient to deny inter-group breeding, but insufficient to deny intra-group breading, those group members who thereafter intra-bred would produce eggs which would produce group members who could not interbreed with the original group. Therefore, the chicken came first.
Some direct evidence of your theory would be nice. Oh, I forgot, the evolutionists don't require direct evidence...to hold their beliefs...something they have in common with Theists... LOL!
Perhaps, I should have characterized my answer differently. Based upon well established principles of scientific inference, there are dozens of examples of geographic isolation leading to speciation. From these examples, the scenario that the chicken preceded the egg is easily inferred. Are there other scientific means by which this could be accomplished? Sure -- an alien intelligence from another planet could have come to Earth and manufactured a chicken egg. For that matter, some prehistoric human ancestor could have diddled the DNA and created a chicken egg. Did this actually happen? Perhaps, but there is no reason to reach that conclusion, a priori, when there is a reasonable inference available from the well established existing science that does not require the introduction of space aliens or super intelligent prehistoric human ancestors. Now, if you take it one step farther, and demand that theology be added into the argument, then all bets are off, because that is the introduction of the supernatural, which is scientifically unmeasurable by definition. The theological answer to the question is, of course: whatever you wish to believe. God could make the chicken come first, the egg come first, both appear simultaneously, neither exist at all, or any combination of the aforementioned. God could even make the answer different every time the question is asked, and simultaneously different for every observer. Maybe I misunderstood the original question question. If it was posed to germinate an argument of creation v. evolution, I submit that such an argument is a non sequitur. Once you establish the existence of God as axiomatic, there is no argument that can support any science, because God can permit a perfect scientific experiment to be performed and produce a verifiable result, and simultaneously declare that the result is false by application of will, and the science would thus be false, no matter how well conducted the experiment. So, to restate my answer, then: within the scope of what is currently known by science, the chicken came first, because of the demonstrable examples of speciation, which provide a scientifically measurable process by which the chicken arose. Is my scientific answer absolutely true? No, because, as previously mentioned, if you want God to be the answer, then no amount of science will suffice. Does my "belief" that the speciation answer is correct, invalidate the science? No, the science is a reasonable inference based on known evidence and prior experimentation. However, ultimately everything is belief, as all observation must be inferred through the senses of the observer. So, if you want the egg to be first, then you're entitled to your belief, and for you, the egg came first.
Okay, you have expressed a "scientific" belief. We should be impressed, because "scientific belief" is infallible? Too funny....