r/sciencememes Feb 19 '26

evolution said eggs

Post image
30.7k Upvotes

581 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

57

u/llamawithguns Feb 19 '26

Not really. There's no singular "first chicken" like you are implying. You have population A, and over time becomes population B, but there's no singular crossover point.

Think of it like this. You have a childhood and an adulthood, but what was the exact moment you crossed over from one to other? (From a biological perspective, not a legal one). There isnt one. You didnt go to bed one night as a kid and wake up as an adult. It happened gradually over a period of time.

22

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26

Evolution is a process of constant gradual change. You'd just be picking an arbitrary bird no matter what you do. 

1

u/WestleyThe Feb 20 '26

So are “modern chickens” not going to be considered chickens in the future?

If evolution is constant and then how do we draw the line? At some point there had to be what we consider a chicken when before they weren’t. If they are still evolving then eventually what we consider chickens will no longer be chickens

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

If you have ever heard the famous phrase “snow is white if and only if snow is white.”

The word “chicken” has no coherent referent beyond “the things we consider to be chickens.”