The egg came first

[kingmonty]

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.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/

 

[bdt]

Heh, it was also the egg that got ..*ahem*.. laid first! (go egg!)
-bdt

 

[Prometheus]

What "laid" the first egg then?

 

[Xarog]

Something that wasn't a chicken. Animals do sometimes pass on random mutations to their offspring, the chicken was just a viable change from it's parents.

(It was recently discovered that there are far more natural abortions than were previously expected - most of them occur so quickly that nothing goes amiss regarding the ovulation cycle. In most cases, the cause is a mutation which is unviable, and the body rejects the foetus.)

 

[bdt]

What "laid" the first egg then?

In the context of the original article, maybe the progenitor of what we (now) know as the birds (and one mammal!) that keep their lines going via eggs. Of course IANAS(cientist), so I'm likely blowing hot air (not a bad thing this time o' year!)
-bdt