OT: FW: Augury and reading chicken bones forprofit... (was Pun-ditry...)

[John Esak]

>>The question assumes that there could not have been a
>>far from chicken
>>  and
>>far from egg
>>that over time became
>>closer to chicken
>>  and
>>closer to egg
>>and then
>>almost chicken
>>  and
>>almost egg
>>and finally
>>chicken
>>  and
>>egg
>>
>>In other words - there did not have to be a first between them they
>>could developed together. To paraphrase an old vaudeville routine
>>developed by Joey Faye and later separately redone by Abbot and
>>Costello, the Three Stooges, and Lucille Ball -  "Slowly they changed .
>>. . step by step . . . inch by inch . . ."
>>
>>
>>
>I believe that logic belongs in vaudeville. To think that slowing down an
>impossible situation to step by step makes it more plausible... well, it's
>specious logic. Chickens come from eggs. Eggs come from chickens. The part
I
>didn't get in your piece is the "almost chicken" and "almost egg". :-) And
>how exactly does that work???  There are some flaws along the way of your
>explanation. But, I certinly don't have anything better to offer...  :-)
>
>
>
>
I'll reply to your earlier email tomorrow. We've have company here this
weekend and with that and with trying to get some work done that I
promised I'd do over the weekend I'm way behind on everything else.

The primary chicken/egg progression would be fish/internal eggs
(salmon), amphibians/external egg sacks (frog), reptiles/ soft shelled
eggs(turtle), birds/hard shelled eggs (chickens). Basic phylogeny. There
is a lot more intermediate detail but basic idea holds.

Ron,

You are one of the smartest guys I know... How is it that you are completely
missing the point and the basic conundrum... By positing  that the primary
(beginning? might I infer??) chicken/egg progression was a fish/internal
egg, you are _using_ the word egg. Where did this first fish with its
internal eggs come from?????  Internal, external, if you have an animal with
the "eggs" already there... then exactly, precisely what do you mean? You
need something we (all of us) can agree on a priori, without an assumption
that is not unfounded... i.e., not an animal that comes _already_
conveniently built with an egg mechanism.

Obviously, this all happened somehow, but not the way you are portraying so
far. That fish with the internal eggs didn't just pop out of thin air... or
those eggs which used to be inside its progenitors... How did the
progenitors get evolved enough to develop an egg scenario? What would have
been the "birthing" mechanism and insemination mechanism up through all the
generations until then? Stork? :-)

John

P.S. If I were pressed to give a decidedly uninformed opinion, though. I
think it all started _without_ eggs anywhere in the picture. We talk about
the primordial ooze... put this just a few eons after the last big bang...
we have to start somewhere... some inert gasses and random combinations of
other elements get bombarded with energy from the process of whatever
started it all... and voila proto life... Let's leave this for a "given"...
if you can't accept that it (life) all started somewhere, somehow, then
there is no reason for the discussion of anything. :-) I want to follow my
own rules in that there has to be some a priori basis from which to start.
So, at least, my scheme will not begin with a fish that already has eggs.
:-)

I would lean toward the belief that this protoplasmic life differentiated in
that "step by step" way you allude to until concentrations of certain atoms
formed molecules that merged with others to eventually form the basic
materials for building DNA. Everything still being in a chemical soup that
allowed random groupings of DNA to literally be infused and merged with
other concentrations of DNA by pure physical association until sections of
the "goo" became specific enough to regenerate more copies of groupings of
the stuff that would eventually become cell material within the confines of
the primary "mess".  Then eventually (apologies for using the word
eventually 300 times... but no other works as well in this discussion)
sections broke off from the whole and were able to continue existence
separately.  Protoplasmic "messes" splitting and pushing off copies. Each
phyla doing it in its own way of course. The splitting and differentiating
parts eventually being encased in nutrients from the surrounding masses.
More differentiation and more separation until live birth became the outcome
of what was originally a purely physical, friction-based separation. The
onset of this process itself along with others combined to make part of the
huge mass of "life" an organism unto itself. These organisms managed to feed
on the material separating them, still producing the "copies" of their own
now far more complex DNA groupings. Chemicals generated by the parent mass's
conversion of external life material surrounded the child copy masses within
the parent eventually evolving a harder wall for protection of the parent
from the ravenous growth of the new copy mass. These "eggs" with either
soft, medium, or hard shells are ejected from the parent mass almost as
foreign bodies. So, from a vast photosynthetic blob of life comes smaller
blobs which are essentially still just breaking off from the parent blob.
The egg package is only one in the many procreation mechanisms that happened
along the way from chemical soup to the living mud we all call life today. I
don't believe there _is_ a chicken and egg question. The chicken came first.
:-)

John