Is the Chicken and Egg Problem Solvable? | Blute Blog Blute Blog Blute's blog about evolutionary theory: biological, sociocultural and gene-culture. Is the Chicken and Egg Problem Solvable? leave a comment » Evolutionary biologists sometimes say that a chicken is just an egg’s way of making more eggs even though they in fact begin their story of “generation” with chickens making eggs rather than eggs making chickens! Developmental biologists on the other hand actually study how eggs make chickens. Meanwhile, a “chicken and egg problem” has become a synonym in popular usage for an unsolvable problem. So is the apocryphal chicken and egg problem solvable? I don’t know whether it can or ever will be solved empirically. However, theoretically I think the key question is whether geological and physio-chemical processes originally created many small things or a few large ones. I think the former is far more likely. If so, then individual growth and development came first and demographic growth developed rather than demographic growth coming first and individual growth and development evolving. Eventually of course the circle was closed so that instead of individual growth and development being the end and demographic growth a means to that end, or demographic growth the end and individual growth and development a means to that end, both became ends and both a means to the other’s end. Share this: Twitter Facebook Like this: Like Loading... Related Written by Marion Blute June 25, 2021 at 10:25 am Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with chicken and egg problem, origin of life « Get Costs In! Feminist Views on a Theory of Sexes, Sex and Sexual Selection » Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here... Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Email (Address never made public) Name Website You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Δ Search for: Now available from Cambridge University Press: Recent Posts Where did the summer go? Life Speed Reticulation in Evolution Scientist: E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature Niklas Luhmann still publishing! Other blogs Evolution for Everyone Evolutionary Theories in the Social Sciences Evolving Thoughts Journal of Human Evolution Book Review Blog Pharyngula Sandwalk Why Evolution Is True Other resources Chain Letter Evolution Evolution, Biology and Society section of the American Sociological Association Open Semiotics Resource Centre Science Daily Resources: Some interesting online journals Canadian Journal of Sociology Philosophy and Theory in Biology Spontaneous Generations Archives September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 December 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 September 2019 June 2019 May 2019 September 2018 February 2016 November 2015 December 2014 April 2014 August 2013 January 2012 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 December 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 April 2010 March 2010 This work by Marion Blute is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Following Blute Blog Sign me up Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now. Blute Blog Customize Follow Following Sign up Log in Copy shortlink Report this content View post in Reader Manage subscriptions Collapse this bar %d bloggers like this: