What came first, the chicken or the egg?

BlackTentacle

The chicken and and egg are just metaphors for DNA and Protein. The proteins can catalyse reactions as enzymes. They are both essential for life and you can not have one without the other. So how did life arise from the primordial soup without pre-existing DNA and proteins? The answer was a molecules that could perform both roles of replication and of catalysing reactions called RNA - ribonucleic acid; as opposed to deoxyribonucleic acid - DNA and RNA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis

Ryan_m_b

Actually the chicken and egg riddle predates knowledge of DNA and protein by over two thousand years. Aristotle is known to have used it to question the nature of the origin of life.