CHICKEN OR THE EGG? SCIENTIST CLAIMS EGG CAME FIRST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 9, 23 December 1947, Page 2

CHICKEN OR THE EGG? SCIENTIST CLAIMS EGG CAME FIRST

A scientist who has been trying for 25 years to help the average man understand science took on the problem of which came first, the chicken or the ' egg, recently. He is Adelaide University’s physical science lecturer, Dr. Stuart Wortiey Pennycuick. He says the egg came first. All birds, says chubby, snub-nosed Pennycuick, were evolved from reptiles. Therefore, a reptile must have laid an egg from which developed something like a bird—the egg came before the bird. Having passed the egg back to the reptiles,, Pennycuick proceeds: “The reptile was evolved from an amphibian, so an amphibian must have laid an egg out of which came something like a reptile. “Going back another stage, the amphibian was evolved from a fish and, therefore, the fish must have laid the egg out of which came something like an amphibian. “The fish has been evolved throughout the ages from the simplest of the organisms, namely, the unicellular organism which is in itself nothing but an egg. “Therefore, however far you go back, the egg always comes first.”