What came first: The Chicken or The Egg

The first chicken-egg came from a non-chickenThe chicken evolved from a bird that was not a chicken, but very nearly a chicken. At some step in the evolutionary process, a non-chicken produced a slightly mutated offspring that became the first chicken. This is true however one wishes to define a "chicken." Whatever criteria one chooses, it could be defined by some DNA test that distinguishes non-chickens from chickens. Mutations occur when the hen's ovum is fertilized by the rooster. The DNA is then established in the egg, and the egg grows to become the first chicken. "Since DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) can be modified only before birth, ... that a mutation must have taken place at conception or within an egg such that a creature similar to a chicken, but not a chicken, laid the first chicken eggs. These eggs then hatched into chickens that inbred to produce a living population." [1. http://en.wikipedia.org... additionally verified by 2. http://www.cnn.com... and 3. http://science.howstuffworks.com... ]If our non-chicken/chicken DNA test (NCCDNAT) were applied to the hen, it could not show the hen was chicken, because the premise is that we are to explain the first chicken. The NCCDNAT also could not show the rooster to be a chicken, again by the premise that we must explain the first chicken. However, the egg can pass the NCCDNAT because it is formed from two DNA strings with a mutation possibly added as well. The DNA of the egg determines that what emerges will also be a chicken."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." [2. op cit]It's possible that the first chicken, coming from the first chicken-producing-egg, might mate with non-chicken to produce a non-chicken. there are no other chickens, so with certainty the mate will be a non-chicken. We don't know if the offspring of the first chicken and a non-chicken will pass the NCCDNAT or not. But we don't care, because the resolution for this debate only deals with the first chicken, not later chickens. It might be that generations pass before another NCCDAT-certified chicken occurs. Nonetheless, the egg preceded the first chicken. We do not know with certainty if the modern chicken was produced by a mutation or if it was a simple hybrid. "The modern chicken was believed to have descended from another closely related species of birds, the red junglefowl, but recently discovered genetic evidence suggests that the modern domestic chicken is a hybrid descendant of both the red junglefowl and the grey junglefowl. [1, op cit] If the chicken is a hybrid, then many independent examples might have been produced. The ranges of the red and gray junglefowl are largely distinct, but overlap in a small region of India. [4. http://en.wikipedia.org...] Many may have been produced when something, perhaps climate, caused an overlap of the populations. The chicken population would then have to have been isolated to enable speciation. However, in each case the egg would have come first, as neither parent was a "chicken" under the modern definition.Pro's ArgumentPro argues chickens evolved from flying dinosaurs. That only explains how bids evolved, not how chickens in particular originated as an identifiable species. Birds include penguins, ostriches, crows, parrots, chickens, and about 10,000 other species in class Aves of tetrapod vertebrates. [5. http://en.wikipedia.org...] Saying they came from dinosaurs doesn't tell us whether the egg or the chicken was the first example of the chicken. Because the DNA doesn't change in the egg, but does change in the non-chicken parent, the egg must have been first.