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But the question is, is a chicken egg an egg containing a chicken or an egg which was laid by a chicken? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/AntiMeme@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not even necessarily "proto-chicken", the definition of species is operational and breaks down at this level. It's like asking "how strong is this wind?" with a single air molecule. For species, the proto-chicken and the chicken separated by a single generation would be able to reproduce just fine, you need to pick further points to discern

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I mean, I'm way oversimplifying, but that is the general idea of evolution. But yes it's far more gradual than one bird giving birth to a full modern chicken.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    I'm way oversimplifying, but that is the general idea of evolution.

    It isn't, but that wasn't my point either way. I'm emphasizing that this gradation you see (the "far more gradual" you wrote) actually applies constantly to the whole lineage, at any two points, unless they're very apart from each other, which means that "species" as a definition can't work when comparing generations that are too close together.

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