This "debate" was settled in 1859. The egg came first. Reptiles hatched out of eggs before there were any birds, and then laid eggs, and so on. Reptiles evolved into birds (over many generations) and chickens are evolved birds. Therefore there were eggs millennia before there were chickens.

(But Meghan's argument that one view "just seems fitting" is not a good way of establishing the truth of anything.)

It would have been the egg. There were eggs way before birds and definitely way before chickens. I think that the question is asking in general what came first. Well the first creatures were microscopic creatures. As time went along the creatures evolved ( yes I am going with evolution ) into different creatures finally giving birth to a reptile which laid eggs. Then a millennia later the first chicken came from the offspring of birds. So the egg came first.

THE EGG because other things laid the egg and slowly it evolved to be the chicken

Well, it’s still unclear whether chicken eggs or chickens came first (the intended question in the original riddle), said Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist of the University of Calgary in Alberta who was the first scientist to closely analyze the dinosaur nest.

But interpreted literally, the answer to the riddle is clear. Dinosaurs were forming bird-like nests and laying bird-like eggs long before birds (including chickens) evolved from dinosaurs.

"The egg came before the chicken," Zelenitsky said. "Chickens evolved well after the meat-eating dinosaurs that laid these eggs."

So the original riddle might now be rephrased: Which came first, the dinosaur or the egg? Meanwhile, the new nest provides some of the strongest evidence in North America in favor of the bird-like egg over the chicken.

Woah, now! Eggs were around way before chickens. Velociraptors laid them first. Chicken eggs came only shortly before chickens, but that's beside the point.

Where'd the chicken come from if it wasn't an egg?

Reptiles don't give live birth, the egg is a trait of the bird, like reptiles. If the first true chicken came from anywhere, with the ability to lay eggs, it came from another animal with the ability to lay eggs. The egg came first, and the chicken came out of that.

Now I know why I've always liked ya Meghan. It's cause ya make no sense no how no way....lol! Do ya figure Gawd marked the eggs with letters, like D for dino, C fer Chickie, K fer Kukla? Da world was hatched from da egg...sounds gud to me 2.

Before chickens evolved, many other reptilian species and early species of birds laid eggs. Therefore it is clear that the egg came first.

A better question might be, "Which came first, the chicken, or the chicken egg?"

I'm going to be bold here, and I'm going to stand by this, the egg. No matter what your belief is as to how the world was created, the idea of the world hatching out of an egg and growing just seems fitting.

Simply downvoting my argument just proves how creationism isn't logical. You have no rebuttal, so you just downvote the opposition. :(

It has to be the egg!

All living organisms evolve over time. Something (whatever it was) had to finally pop out the egg, introducing a new species to the world. The chi-chi-chicken!

Okay... this is from a long time ago, but you don't believe in evolution? Look at all of the fossil records and convergent evolution and similar ontongeny between species (study of development)! There is so much evidence! :)

The point is there was an animal on top of the egg but it was not a chicken. The first chicken egg was laid by birds that were not the same as a chicken. How can you even think the chicken when there were dinosaurs hundreds of thousands of years before the chicken?

But who says the egg was laid by a chicken?