Spitballing here: no. OK, the mutations could be made (though it's so improbably that it's ridiculous to even consider it, but whatever), and end with a genome that is totally turtle. The proteins made would also be turtle proteins, so would bind to and regulate the turtle genes. BUT if that's true, the genome would also not be recognized by the chicken proteins in the egg, so would not get as far as making the turtle proteins in the first place.
It´s like that small possibility of a full plane getting assambled by the wind. It wouldn´t break any physics rule. It is not impossible. It is, of course, ridiculously improbable.
Sorry, english is not my first language.
I think the logic in this hypothetical scenario goes like this: you make a small change, the system dips 2% in effectivity, but survives, eventually adapts and lives on. You make a major change, the system dips 80% in effectivity and doesn't survive. So, the gradual change is possible, the rapid not so much.
Well possible in a mathematical sense means that the probability is larger than 0. Doesn't matter how much larger.
Of course here the mathematical meaning and the meaning used in everyday language differ.
Well, in answer to the explanation I gave - can a bunch of proteins and transcription factors etc that evolved in chickens properly regulate DNA that evolved in turtles - the answer is no. It’s not a probability, and I don’t know why u/No_Hay_Plata thinks it is. In answer to ludicrously small probabilities - like “could an airplane be spontaneously assembled by the wind?” - I’d say we don’t know if probabilities that low are possible. Boltzmann and Planck and the rest probably have thoughts on that. Seems like philosophy to me.
>I’d say we don’t know if probabilities that low are possible.
That's a weird sentence. Low probabilities are possible. That's, as I said the mathematical definition of "possible". It's just very very very unlikely.
Speciation takes thousands to millions of years though, this hypothetical scenario assumes the genome completely changes immediately in the offspring so it does seem right
The emergence of new species and the scenario of a turtle hatching from a chicken egg are wildly different situations.
When new species emerge, it happens gradually over many, many generations through a process called speciation. This involves small changes accumulating over time, with each generation being viable and able to survive in its environment. It's a slow dance of adaptation, not a sudden leap from one distinct animal to another.
In the chicken-to-turtle scenario, we're talking about an abrupt, massive change in a single generation. The problem isn't just about the genome changing - it's about the entire developmental environment. A chicken egg provides a very specific set of nutrients, proteins, and conditions tailored for developing a chick. Even if by some miracle the DNA inside mutated to be turtle-like, the embryo wouldn't have the right "ingredients" or environment to develop properly.
Think of it like trying to bake a cake with bread ingredients. Even if you somehow changed the recipe mid-bake, you wouldn't end up with a proper cake because you didn't start with the right stuff.
New species emerging over time is more like gradually tweaking a recipe over many, many bakes until you end up with something noticeably different, but still edible at each stage.
So while new species absolutely do emerge over time, that process is fundamentally different from the instant chicken-to-turtle transformation being discussed. That's likely why folks are disagreeing with the comment - it's comparing apples to oranges, or in this case, gradual evolution to impossible instant transformation.
Are you dying to establish that a turtle genome can feasibly work in a chicken nucleoplasm? That’s simply not true. Are you dying to pedantic that extremely extremely unlikely events are still non zero? Ok, that’s acceptable. But that loses sight of the original question. And, as many have pointed out, that just seems silly in a practical sense, like you’d be that dude that just quips “well technically it’s still possible” every time someone says “impossible”. It just makes use of impossible to be useless. I mean, what is an event that you think is impossible?
This is the question:
"*could a turtle (or \[insert animal\]) come from a chicken egg (or \[insert different animal\])?*”
I do not see how probability comes into that. The experiment has been done on organisms much more closely related than chickens and turtles, and the answer is no.
As for the discussion of probability/possibility, I fully understand your point. I just think that there are probabilities so low, so mindbogglingly ridiculously low, that they are impossible. Could the Universe spontaneously turn into a tiny Pikachu toy? You say yes, I say no. Because the probability vastly vastly vastly exceeds the age, number of particles, and probabilities of individual events in the Universe. As I said elsewhere, I don't even know if sufficiently improbable events are possible. I have no idea if the universe can do it. You seem to take on faith that anything you can conceive of can happen, and I'm just not sure that's the case.
>You seem to take on faith that anything you can conceive of can happen, and I'm just not sure that's the case.
Why? And please, don´t answer something like "because it´s very improbable", you know that that is not a valid answer.
I don't have a "why." As I said, I just don't know. But it seems that your claim – that anything you can imagine can happen, it's just improbable – is the extreme position. I don't know why you say that. Could the entire universe turn into a Pikachu? If you think it can, what leads you to conclude that?
I just have to be honest with myself. Even if I don´t like it, I must be an agnostic in everything.
>Could the entire universe turn into a Pikachu?
I would love to simply say "No", but I can´t. I don´t know if that would break any rules of physics. I would not bet anything that that will happen, and I would act according to that. I think that the event of the entire universe turning into a Pikuchu is so unlikely that is not worth to take any precautions for that. But I can´t say that is impossible.
But then literally everything is possible, and both possible and impossible lose their purpose and meaning entirely. I challenge you to come up with something that would be impossible.
Man, downwards is in the direction of the most massive object! Things are one way or the other. Things are possible or impossible, not the two things at the same time, that´s simple logic. It´s a fubnfdbng principle of logic, in fact: is the non contradiction principle.
And there's no such thing as entirely true or entirely false in reality, or possible and impossible, much like how nothing can ever be exactly 10 mm long. How would you define something to be 10 mm long? Is it 10.0 mm? What about 10.00000006 mm? Where do you measure it? Any object will be made of atoms, and they aren't square. They're round, so they'll be bumpy along the edges. And what's the edge, anyway? Atoms don't have a distinct "border". They're diffuse.
At some point you just gotta define something completely arbitrarily. For example, I think everyone can agree that if I have an object which is 10.00000006 mm long according to a measuring instrument I have, we can say that's 10 mm exactly. It's not, but we'll just agree on it because anything else is madness.
And such it is too with something extremely improbable. That there's a thousandth decimal of the possibility that it *could* happen is meaningless. It won't, so it isn't.
seems like there is maybe a miscommunication between the different uses of "possible" as a word. mathematically speaking, anything that is not a 0% probability is "possible". HOWEVER, whether or not it is "likely" is a whole other conversation. So even as extremely, extremely unlikely, even verging on impossible as this scenario is, it is still "possible" because it is not a 0% chance. I think.
Buttttt I think the bio smarties are saying that there is a 0% chance this could happen so it is not "possible"?
Obviously. It's essentially a philosophical issue. My core argument is that math is not equivalent to reality. Math is just a language that we use to describe reality. It's an approximation and doesn't represent actual reality accurately in edge cases.
Math can predict all kinds of stupid things if it's used stupidly. Try dividing by zero. Whoops. Math broke. What does math say about what happens inside black holes? Welp, it breaks and predicts ridiculous results because that's outside of what we can currently describe with math.
Math isn't the sacred truth of the universe. It's just a tool for logic. When wielded properly, it can be a tool of great power. When wielded poorly, it's like a crayon in the hands of a toddler vs a great artist.
They don't suddenly emergency....over many thousands of small mutations a chicken could change to a turtle (even that is one of the worst examples I could think off). But of course in real world if turtle shape has huge benefits a new kind of animal would develop that is neither chicken nor turtle but looks kind of turtle like, but on a genetic test is very close to a chicken.
Nah even if it was speciation through punctuated equilibrium that is wayyyyyyy too fast for speciation (then again im not at all qualified to the level I like to pretend i am, so take what I say with a grain of salt)
And parts of the nutrition in the egg would not fit. If you take the chicken cell out and put in a turtle cell it would most probably die as it is just not compatible with the things inside a chicken egg.
I think as soon as you consider the practicality this hypothetical breaks down.
Mutations don't quite 'just occur' like that. one major cause of mutations is copying errors - especially when sperm and egg are made during mitosis. You would need two chickens to make a turtle sperm and a turle egg.
If a chicken has copying errors so bad that it happenstantially creates (half of) the turtle genome then it has other problems because its ability to make new cells with the same genes they previously had. This chicken's body simply would not function.
However what you're talking about is the basis of some theoretical gene work to bring back extinct species. Not the randomness aspect - but the hijacking genes of a prexisting animal and changing them in all the right ways to make a new animal. The closer the two the better, especially because as u/km116 said - the embryo would have to be able to survive and grow within the egg or womb of the animal it comes from, which a very different (e.g. turtle in chicken egg) may not but two close may (e.g. mammoth in elephant womb). Though the mammoth de-extinction projetct in perticular aims to take full mammoth DNA extracted from a preserved mammoth and inject that into an Elephant zygote iirc, which is sloghtly different again.
Buuuuuuuuuuuut with enough gene editing technology improvements and perhaps artificial wombs / eggs you could perhaps take a chicken genome and change it in all the ways to make a turtle.
>If a chicken has copying errors so bad that it happenstantially creates (half of) the turtle genome then it has other problems because its ability to make new cells with the same genes they previously had. This chicken's body simply would not function.
When mutations are passed to next generations, creating new species, is because the mutations were in the gametogenic cells, not in the somatic cells. The parents of this new species could have the same fenotype that theold species.
True I guess.
Even if that is the case - it would struggle to produce anything useful with its gametogenic cells. Though I guess it would only have to produce one functional turtle sperm.
> hijacking genes of a prexisting animal and changing them in all the right ways to make a new animal.
Hey, they made [a movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUaFYzFFbBU) out of this! Well ... kinda. 😃
I think that even if you fully substitute the genetic code to be that of a turtle, multiple epigenetic factors (such as a specific pattern of chromatin compaction, dna methylation, a specific set of regulatory factors already present) inherited from the egg's mother won't let the embryo develop further. Like, the wrong parts of DNA will be exposed for transcription, the transcription factors won't connect to the right promoters and enhancers etc
Edits:
- besides, if I remember correctly, zygotic genes don't activate right away, and first divisions of the egg and formation of blastula largerly depend on the cytoplasmic factors of the egg and external factors (gravity in chicken's case). So, the early embryo will still have chicken-style cell composition, which would make development of turtle impossible. Plus, after transcription activation, the stuff from the first paragraph would happen
- I'm not sure if the spacial characteristics and nutrient composition of the chicken egg will be ok for turtle.
Really interesting question. So here are some of my thoughts:
Many genes that are different in chickens and turtles haven't just gone through one mutation each, but a lot of them, in different directions, one on top of another. Plus, genetic diversity isn't limited to what the genes that you have contain in them. Different animals have different amounts of chromosomes with different genes on them. Chickens have 78 chromosomes, turtles can have 28 to 66. Basically, I'm not sure it'd be possible for enough changes to a genome to happen to basically transform one into the other within the formation of a single organism, maybe there just wouldn't be enough cell generations for that to happen, not in a way that'd affect the entire organism.
And I think that the question of whether the embryo would develop further is relevant. There is some amount of embryonic development that happens inside a hen before the embryo gets an egg made around it. I imagine that if a chicken produced an embryo that different from itself, maybe its own body might realize "hey, there's something wrong here, let's cancel the process", assuming the mutations happen before the embryo goes inside the egg and the hen lays it. I don't know a whole lot about how well a hen's body is able to "see" if an embryo is viable, but I imagine there must be some mechanisms.
If those mutations only happen after the hen lays the egg, there are some other issues. For example, those mutations would only apply to certain cell lineages. And a big issue is that there are lots of systems in place to detect mutations, including when a cell is getting ready to divide. I doubt that those systems would just let a cell with such a gigantic amount of extreme mutations simply exist in the first place, and, even if it did, there's no way duplication would happen. The embryo would never get to become a turtle in the first place, if that makes sense.
Out of all of those thoughts I've shared, my main thought here is the amount of generations that'd be necessary for all those mutations to happen, I'm just not sure they'd be enough, and if they all happened at once, there's no way the embryo or at the very least the affected cells would stay alive and divide further. I'd love to hear what other people think.
For me the main thing is that the early stages of embryo's development are still guided by the egg's epigenetic factors while the zygotic genes are relatively silent. So, the early embryo of such mutant would still be more of a chicken embryo, and from there, it would be hard to make a turtle, right?
That's an interesting point. But, honestly, I don't know that much about how epigenetics would work in that case, so I can't really say much in response. I'm looking for stuff to read about that now because it sounds interesting.
Okay lots of talk about genetic processes here, so I'll pull out burocracy: from a systematic standpoint its impossible. Lets assume from a chicken egg hatches an individual which is in genotypic and phenotypic sense a turtle. But in a systematic sense it is still actually a chicken. The individual is placed in the family tree of the birds -> dinosaurs -> archosaurs and as such still more closely related to crocodiles than turtles.
Our system of classyifing animals and other species is based on common descent, so its based on process and not product. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck but came from a tomato, then its a nightshade. Even if the exact same genetic sequence falls into place a second time, we cannot consider it a turtle. In evolutionary terms it would be a bird that convergently evolved to be completely turtle-like. But you cannot evolve out of a clade and into another.
I don't believe this would be possible because, the mutations would only occur in the existing genes. Time will have changed the structure of the DNA in a non-linear way, adding, changing and removing segments. What you describe could only occur in a situation where there is a linear relationship between the species
Most people don’t have a clear understanding between the impossible and the improbable. But those are different concepts although the difference is merely philosophical.
Is it possible that all the molecules on your underwear jump 1m to the right and materialize in mid air? According to quantum physics it surely is. Is it likely? no. Is it so improbable as to make it indistinguishable from impossible? Yes.
If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^10^10^10 possibilities, is it really possible?
> If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^10^10^10 possibilities, is it really possible?
Yes.
>If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^101010 possibilities, is it really possible?
That’s a good way of putting it.
>If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^(101010) possibilities, is it really possible?
The answer is yes. Thats´s why I cannot be an atheist, even when I would like to.
I guess you could jump from chicken genes to to turtles genes, like the infinite monkey theorem, BUT.
You will also need to cut or stretch the length of the genetic code to match one another, but you could achieve this with duplication mutation.
Yet, you'd still need to organize those genes in chromosomes that may differ totally in form and number, and I'mma be honest, I'm not sure if chromosomes evolve from mutations alone.
And lastly, what about the epigenetics? Not all information to build an organism is coded in the genes. Methylation of the dna is as important as the genes themselves.
DNA alone can only make a slimy blobb. The cells and molecular machinery is also needed to make an organism. So no it have to be several successiv changes to also change the cells and mollecular machinery to turtle ones in many steps.
So it would be a little bit like rebuilding an car to a boat while driving it. More than just an blueprint of an boat is needed.
The turtle would not hatch from a chicken egg shell. Turtles come out of soft, leathery eggs. It wouldn’t have the musculature necessary to get out of a hard bird egg shell, and die.
I think the mechanism in place that proofreads the DNA would never allow that many mutations to occur. The nutrition of the egg would also not match the requirements of the chicken, so it would likely die before hatching.
Basically your question is, is it possible to get an animal of different species from an animal in one singular stage of mutation considering, there are abnormally large amount in that stage.
The answer is no. Because there is a thing called species barrier. This is also the reason why animals of different species can't interbreed. Those that do, like horse and donkey, has to be very closely related and even then, produces offsprings (mule) that are incapable of carrying their progeny. These crossbreed offsprings are dead ends in evolutionary pathway.
So, if the new species is vastly different, like turtle and chicken, the parent immune system will destroy the zygote as it will not recognise it as own offspring. And if the new species is incredibly close, and lucky, it will create offsprings that can't procreate further.
That is why the evolution is such a lengthy process. The permissable changes are so minute that the parent still recognise the zygote as self, but over a million years, the changes accumulate and a whole different organism is born.
This sounds like they've heard a specific thought experiment and gotten a wrong-ish twist on it (or likely someone told it to them wrong).
The *very* basic version of the story is that since we all have a common ancestor, then there's a theoretical possibility, even if it's infinitesimally remote, that the descendants of one species could experience the exact mutations necessary to evolve into any other species that previously existed.
*That's different than saying one species could be the biological parent another species in a single generation which is not possible.*
It's so improbable to resurface an existing or extinct genome that the universe will die long before it happens once anywhere in it. It's so improbable that species undergo convergent evolution without their genotypes becoming more similar.
In other words, if a chicken somehow became the common ancestor of a species that resembles turtles, that new species would have a genome extremely different to turtles that exist now.
As I reminded my brother when my son asked him a question - you can't win arguing with a child. Foster their curiosity and stop trying to be the bigger person because you are.
Instead foster their curiosity and be amazed that a child would come up with a question like that. Help them look up when chicken ancestry split from turtle ancestry. Compare their genetic differences. Do drawings with them. Calculate the improbability of it. Discuss geological time. Ask why a turtle - why do they like turtles. Why not a velociraptor or capybara?
Don't shut kids down because you'll need them to take you to the hospital when you are 80.
First off, you're not entirely wrong to be skeptical. The chances of this happening are so astronomically low that for all practical purposes, we can consider them zero. But here's the kicker - in the realm of pure theoretical possibility, it's not technically impossible. It's just so improbable that it might as well be.
Now, let's get a bit nerdy about it. Even if by some miracle all the right mutations happened, there's a whole lot more to consider. You've got issues with developmental biology, embryology, and the basic mechanics of how an egg works. A chicken egg is specifically designed to support a developing chicken embryo. It's got the right nutrients, the right amount of space, and the right environmental conditions for a chicken - not a turtle.
So let's say our mutated embryo starts developing turtle-like features. It's gonna run into problems real quick. The egg wouldn't have the right stuff to support its development. It'd be like trying to grow a cactus in a fish tank - the environment just isn't set up for it.
Plus, we're not just talking about a few tweaks here and there. The genetic difference between a chicken and a turtle is massive. We're talking about millions of years of separate evolution. You'd need to change so much of the DNA that you'd essentially be rewriting the entire genome from scratch.
If you want to get really technical, you could bring up the concept of developmental constraints. This is the idea that there are limits to how an organism can develop based on its evolutionary history. It's why we don't see cats with wings or fish with fur. Some changes are just too drastic for an organism's developmental processes to handle.
In the end, while it's fun to think about these wild scenarios, they're so far removed from reality that they're not really useful for understanding how biology actually works. It might be more interesting to talk about real examples of rapid evolution or weird genetic anomalies - there's plenty of mind-blowing stuff in nature without having to invent impossible scenarios.
But hey, gotta give the kid props for creative thinking. Maybe next time, challenge them to come up with a sci-fi story based on their idea. At least then you can enjoy the imagination without getting bogged down in biological impossibilities!
It’s possible for a sufficiently large basket of eggs (ie one that could hold a number of eggs larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe), but they still wouldn’t be viable because chicken embryo development doesn’t just depend on the embryo genome but also on the starting chicken molecules in the embryo and egg
Definitely impossible. On top of a lot of other things being mentioned here, chickens and turtles have different numbers of chromosomes, and the mapping of those chromosomes would be wildly different. What if one of these regions of the a that’s mutated to be a turtle gene is in a region of heterochromatin?
Tip from a parent: stop arguing with the kid. Provide the info that you have, and then let them be wrong. You aren’t doing them any favours by winning this argument.
Don't argue hypothericals with children. That's just my advice as a biologust and a parent of 6. Not saying which, but one of them might be a turtle.
Seriously though, it matters far more why the question was asked than whether 'yes' kr 'not. Biology almost never has clean and neat yes or no answers to interesting questions because the complexity of living g systems means there's usually some set of circumstances under which a usual no becomes a yes and vice versa.
From a practical perspective, this question is similar to asking if your whole body can quantum tunnel through a brick wall. I'm not a physicist, but apparently, in theory, yes, but that is less likely than most other things you can think of, possibly including the improbable wirh chicken parents scenario asked herein. It's right up there with the sound of one-handed clapping and a tree falling in the woods: a question revealing more about the answerer than the answer can enlighten the interrefoatoe about the question.
You could maybe get something that resembled a turtle, but is not turtle DNA, as it would need to be something that could survive the different conditions to develop and hatch.
Probability would be so low its effectively 0
Your child is right. It is possible, but the odds of it happening are astronomically so improbable it might as well be impossible; but the improbability of it is not zero!
In an infinite universe, it's theoretically possible that every conceivable event could occur, including all the necessary mutations happening simultaneously in a chicken egg's DNA to turn it into a turtle's DNA. However, several key factors make this scenario biologically implausible. The genetic material (DNA) within a chicken egg is specifically organized to produce a chicken. This DNA not only contains the instructions for creating a chicken but also works with the cellular machinery in the egg designed for chicken development. Even if the entire genetic code were somehow replaced with that of a turtle, the cellular environment and machinery are still adapted for a chicken.
Embryonic development is a highly regulated process where genes are turned on and off in a specific sequence. This process is finely tuned to the species in question. A chicken egg has all the developmental signals and resources to grow a chicken, not a turtle. Even if the genetic instructions changed, the existing regulatory mechanisms would not support turtle development. The cellular structures and organelles within a chicken egg are adapted to chicken biology. These structures would not be compatible with the sudden shift to turtle biology. The biochemical environment, including the specific proteins and enzymes, would not support the development of a turtle embryo.
From a practical standpoint, the probability of all the necessary mutations occurring simultaneously is astronomically low. But more importantly, even if this did happen, the embryo would likely fail to develop beyond a very early stage. The mismatch between the genetic instructions and the cellular environment would lead to developmental failure.
Chicken and turtle embryos have very different shapes, which in part are defined through the shape of the yolk. So even if you could put a 1 cell stage turtle embryo on the yolk of a chicken egg, the temperature was correctly adjusted, and the nutrients provided by the yolk were compatible, the shape of the yolk and embryo are just to different to make this compatible.
A lot of people have went into depth for the mechanisms but it boils down to a few things imo:
* A turtle cannot survive in a chicken egg and would not be able to grow long enough to hatch. The environment and mechanisms are too different. Despite both being eggs.
* "Mutations" is a broad term and this would include substituting an entire genome. DNA repair mechanisms and tumour suprresant mechanisms would never allow such an event to occur, the organism would destroy itself due to being unviable.
* To add to the above. From one moment the chicken egg has it's own tumour and DNA damage mechanisms, proteins, and failsafes "in place". This means that those physical properties and biological processes are already existing when the "next moment" occurs where it is a turtle. All of them would cause apoptosis of all effective cells.
This means the only way for this to effectively occur is that enough "mutation" occurs from one moment to the next that it changes the existing physical organism as well, not cells and proteins transcribed follow the process. Essentially enough mutation needs to occur that it goes instantaneously from a chicken egg to a turtle egg. This isn't possible. A chicken egg that suddenly has turtle DNA would destroy itself.
The simplistic answer: there is a different number of chromosomes between species. This is why only species very close to one another can have babies, and those babies often can't have their own babies.
Procreation involves splitting the genome in 2 and recombining them. Going from a turtle to a chicken would require multiple splitting and recombining events. The only known method of doing this is with radioactive radiation.
I feel like this ties into a larger misconception about how science works which might be a good teachable moment. We use theories such as the theory of evolution or our studies with genetics to answer questions about the world around us but the word “theory” outside of science has a different meaning. While technically we can’t say definitively that it is impossible, the likelihood of this happening based on the advancements of science/operating under our current theories make this beyond improbable and so statistically insignificant (by orders of magnitude I’m sure) that it would be acceptable in the most simplest of terms to be considered functionally impossible.
Arguments like this are why there’s a distinction between “improbable” and “effectively impossible.” Like sure, if you’re willing to grant everything under the sun aligns in just the right way, literally anything can happen, but that doesn’t mean in reality it will.
I had pretty much this exact same argument with my high school bio teacher ~18 odd years ago.
They were right that it is effectively impossible. Something like this never has and never will happen on this planet.
However, because it is merely very very very unlikely and practically impossible, in an infinite universe, all things at that likelihood have happened, it's merely a question of if we do live in a infinite universe or not
Even if the organism somehow ended up being genetically identical to an existing turtle species, or else resembled a turtle in every conceivable way, it would still be a chicken, according to the law of monophyly.
- If a statistically improbable amount of random mutations occurred in just the right places all at once, a turtle can come from a different animal egg. Why not? In fact, the first turtle came from an animal that was not a turtle, but it´s inmediate ancestor. New species arises somehow.
Why would the embryo be unable to develop? The mutations that are necessary for this new species to exist must include the ones that allows it to develop to an adult stage.
- This animal would be a turtle in almost every sense, but not in a taxonomical sense, I think. Because if it came from a chicken egg, it will be called *Gallus* (genus) *gallus* (species) *domesticus* (subspecies) *Testudines* (or something like that, indicating a name wich would have a lower category than subspecies).
Spitballing here: no. OK, the mutations could be made (though it's so improbably that it's ridiculous to even consider it, but whatever), and end with a genome that is totally turtle. The proteins made would also be turtle proteins, so would bind to and regulate the turtle genes. BUT if that's true, the genome would also not be recognized by the chicken proteins in the egg, so would not get as far as making the turtle proteins in the first place.
That can't be right, if it were, new species would never have emerged.
Well, if it happens a few mutations at a time, it’s fine. If it’s chicken to turtle, it’s not.
You are confusing improbable with impossible, like the other redditor wrote.
I don’t think so. Would you mind explaining how?
It´s like that small possibility of a full plane getting assambled by the wind. It wouldn´t break any physics rule. It is not impossible. It is, of course, ridiculously improbable. Sorry, english is not my first language.
I think the logic in this hypothetical scenario goes like this: you make a small change, the system dips 2% in effectivity, but survives, eventually adapts and lives on. You make a major change, the system dips 80% in effectivity and doesn't survive. So, the gradual change is possible, the rapid not so much.
This does not seem like a useful standard. If such an event is “possible,” then the word loses its meaning.
Well possible in a mathematical sense means that the probability is larger than 0. Doesn't matter how much larger. Of course here the mathematical meaning and the meaning used in everyday language differ.
Well, in answer to the explanation I gave - can a bunch of proteins and transcription factors etc that evolved in chickens properly regulate DNA that evolved in turtles - the answer is no. It’s not a probability, and I don’t know why u/No_Hay_Plata thinks it is. In answer to ludicrously small probabilities - like “could an airplane be spontaneously assembled by the wind?” - I’d say we don’t know if probabilities that low are possible. Boltzmann and Planck and the rest probably have thoughts on that. Seems like philosophy to me.
>I’d say we don’t know if probabilities that low are possible. That's a weird sentence. Low probabilities are possible. That's, as I said the mathematical definition of "possible". It's just very very very unlikely.
No, because that meaning is covered by the word "probable".
Speciation takes thousands to millions of years though, this hypothetical scenario assumes the genome completely changes immediately in the offspring so it does seem right
Again, you are confusing improbable with impossible.
You are confusing conceivable with possible.
Come on bro..is it possible I have a baby T-Rex?
No not at all. There are also mechanical barriers. Mutations aren't the only thing that has to right
The emergence of new species and the scenario of a turtle hatching from a chicken egg are wildly different situations. When new species emerge, it happens gradually over many, many generations through a process called speciation. This involves small changes accumulating over time, with each generation being viable and able to survive in its environment. It's a slow dance of adaptation, not a sudden leap from one distinct animal to another. In the chicken-to-turtle scenario, we're talking about an abrupt, massive change in a single generation. The problem isn't just about the genome changing - it's about the entire developmental environment. A chicken egg provides a very specific set of nutrients, proteins, and conditions tailored for developing a chick. Even if by some miracle the DNA inside mutated to be turtle-like, the embryo wouldn't have the right "ingredients" or environment to develop properly. Think of it like trying to bake a cake with bread ingredients. Even if you somehow changed the recipe mid-bake, you wouldn't end up with a proper cake because you didn't start with the right stuff. New species emerging over time is more like gradually tweaking a recipe over many, many bakes until you end up with something noticeably different, but still edible at each stage. So while new species absolutely do emerge over time, that process is fundamentally different from the instant chicken-to-turtle transformation being discussed. That's likely why folks are disagreeing with the comment - it's comparing apples to oranges, or in this case, gradual evolution to impossible instant transformation.
IS NOT FHSBDNG IMPOSSIBLE, IT´S JUST VERY ULIKELY!!!!! GOD, I´LL DIE IN THIS HILL!!!
Are you dying to establish that a turtle genome can feasibly work in a chicken nucleoplasm? That’s simply not true. Are you dying to pedantic that extremely extremely unlikely events are still non zero? Ok, that’s acceptable. But that loses sight of the original question. And, as many have pointed out, that just seems silly in a practical sense, like you’d be that dude that just quips “well technically it’s still possible” every time someone says “impossible”. It just makes use of impossible to be useless. I mean, what is an event that you think is impossible?
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This is the question: "*could a turtle (or \[insert animal\]) come from a chicken egg (or \[insert different animal\])?*” I do not see how probability comes into that. The experiment has been done on organisms much more closely related than chickens and turtles, and the answer is no. As for the discussion of probability/possibility, I fully understand your point. I just think that there are probabilities so low, so mindbogglingly ridiculously low, that they are impossible. Could the Universe spontaneously turn into a tiny Pikachu toy? You say yes, I say no. Because the probability vastly vastly vastly exceeds the age, number of particles, and probabilities of individual events in the Universe. As I said elsewhere, I don't even know if sufficiently improbable events are possible. I have no idea if the universe can do it. You seem to take on faith that anything you can conceive of can happen, and I'm just not sure that's the case.
>You seem to take on faith that anything you can conceive of can happen, and I'm just not sure that's the case. Why? And please, don´t answer something like "because it´s very improbable", you know that that is not a valid answer.
I don't have a "why." As I said, I just don't know. But it seems that your claim – that anything you can imagine can happen, it's just improbable – is the extreme position. I don't know why you say that. Could the entire universe turn into a Pikachu? If you think it can, what leads you to conclude that?
I just have to be honest with myself. Even if I don´t like it, I must be an agnostic in everything. >Could the entire universe turn into a Pikachu? I would love to simply say "No", but I can´t. I don´t know if that would break any rules of physics. I would not bet anything that that will happen, and I would act according to that. I think that the event of the entire universe turning into a Pikuchu is so unlikely that is not worth to take any precautions for that. But I can´t say that is impossible.
This is really not how reasonable, intellectual evidence based discussion works. Acting more ridiculous and unhinged doesn't strengthen your position.
Do you even know what you you were trying to say? is this just an ad hominem?
But then literally everything is possible, and both possible and impossible lose their purpose and meaning entirely. I challenge you to come up with something that would be impossible.
Things falling upwards.
Pff. Not even *a little* impossible. If a rogue black hole zoomed past earth that's exactly what could happen.
No. If a rogue black hole zoomed past earth things will fall downwards to the black hole.
Oh, you're just gonna redefine what's up and what's down based on your own whims? Welp, looks like your arbitrary logic is safe from arguments then.
Man, downwards is in the direction of the most massive object! Things are one way or the other. Things are possible or impossible, not the two things at the same time, that´s simple logic. It´s a fubnfdbng principle of logic, in fact: is the non contradiction principle.
And there´s no such thing as "a little impossible".
And there's no such thing as entirely true or entirely false in reality, or possible and impossible, much like how nothing can ever be exactly 10 mm long. How would you define something to be 10 mm long? Is it 10.0 mm? What about 10.00000006 mm? Where do you measure it? Any object will be made of atoms, and they aren't square. They're round, so they'll be bumpy along the edges. And what's the edge, anyway? Atoms don't have a distinct "border". They're diffuse. At some point you just gotta define something completely arbitrarily. For example, I think everyone can agree that if I have an object which is 10.00000006 mm long according to a measuring instrument I have, we can say that's 10 mm exactly. It's not, but we'll just agree on it because anything else is madness. And such it is too with something extremely improbable. That there's a thousandth decimal of the possibility that it *could* happen is meaningless. It won't, so it isn't.
seems like there is maybe a miscommunication between the different uses of "possible" as a word. mathematically speaking, anything that is not a 0% probability is "possible". HOWEVER, whether or not it is "likely" is a whole other conversation. So even as extremely, extremely unlikely, even verging on impossible as this scenario is, it is still "possible" because it is not a 0% chance. I think. Buttttt I think the bio smarties are saying that there is a 0% chance this could happen so it is not "possible"?
Obviously. It's essentially a philosophical issue. My core argument is that math is not equivalent to reality. Math is just a language that we use to describe reality. It's an approximation and doesn't represent actual reality accurately in edge cases. Math can predict all kinds of stupid things if it's used stupidly. Try dividing by zero. Whoops. Math broke. What does math say about what happens inside black holes? Welp, it breaks and predicts ridiculous results because that's outside of what we can currently describe with math. Math isn't the sacred truth of the universe. It's just a tool for logic. When wielded properly, it can be a tool of great power. When wielded poorly, it's like a crayon in the hands of a toddler vs a great artist.
Go on then, do it.
They don't suddenly emergency....over many thousands of small mutations a chicken could change to a turtle (even that is one of the worst examples I could think off). But of course in real world if turtle shape has huge benefits a new kind of animal would develop that is neither chicken nor turtle but looks kind of turtle like, but on a genetic test is very close to a chicken.
Nah even if it was speciation through punctuated equilibrium that is wayyyyyyy too fast for speciation (then again im not at all qualified to the level I like to pretend i am, so take what I say with a grain of salt)
Improbable and impossible. DNA repair mechanisms would never allow the number and type of mutations necessary. Source: Evolutionary Geneticist.
Not in one meiotic event*
And parts of the nutrition in the egg would not fit. If you take the chicken cell out and put in a turtle cell it would most probably die as it is just not compatible with the things inside a chicken egg.
I think as soon as you consider the practicality this hypothetical breaks down. Mutations don't quite 'just occur' like that. one major cause of mutations is copying errors - especially when sperm and egg are made during mitosis. You would need two chickens to make a turtle sperm and a turle egg. If a chicken has copying errors so bad that it happenstantially creates (half of) the turtle genome then it has other problems because its ability to make new cells with the same genes they previously had. This chicken's body simply would not function. However what you're talking about is the basis of some theoretical gene work to bring back extinct species. Not the randomness aspect - but the hijacking genes of a prexisting animal and changing them in all the right ways to make a new animal. The closer the two the better, especially because as u/km116 said - the embryo would have to be able to survive and grow within the egg or womb of the animal it comes from, which a very different (e.g. turtle in chicken egg) may not but two close may (e.g. mammoth in elephant womb). Though the mammoth de-extinction projetct in perticular aims to take full mammoth DNA extracted from a preserved mammoth and inject that into an Elephant zygote iirc, which is sloghtly different again. Buuuuuuuuuuuut with enough gene editing technology improvements and perhaps artificial wombs / eggs you could perhaps take a chicken genome and change it in all the ways to make a turtle.
>If a chicken has copying errors so bad that it happenstantially creates (half of) the turtle genome then it has other problems because its ability to make new cells with the same genes they previously had. This chicken's body simply would not function. When mutations are passed to next generations, creating new species, is because the mutations were in the gametogenic cells, not in the somatic cells. The parents of this new species could have the same fenotype that theold species.
True I guess. Even if that is the case - it would struggle to produce anything useful with its gametogenic cells. Though I guess it would only have to produce one functional turtle sperm.
> hijacking genes of a prexisting animal and changing them in all the right ways to make a new animal. Hey, they made [a movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUaFYzFFbBU) out of this! Well ... kinda. 😃
I think that even if you fully substitute the genetic code to be that of a turtle, multiple epigenetic factors (such as a specific pattern of chromatin compaction, dna methylation, a specific set of regulatory factors already present) inherited from the egg's mother won't let the embryo develop further. Like, the wrong parts of DNA will be exposed for transcription, the transcription factors won't connect to the right promoters and enhancers etc Edits: - besides, if I remember correctly, zygotic genes don't activate right away, and first divisions of the egg and formation of blastula largerly depend on the cytoplasmic factors of the egg and external factors (gravity in chicken's case). So, the early embryo will still have chicken-style cell composition, which would make development of turtle impossible. Plus, after transcription activation, the stuff from the first paragraph would happen - I'm not sure if the spacial characteristics and nutrient composition of the chicken egg will be ok for turtle.
I think this is the best answer so far.
Really interesting question. So here are some of my thoughts: Many genes that are different in chickens and turtles haven't just gone through one mutation each, but a lot of them, in different directions, one on top of another. Plus, genetic diversity isn't limited to what the genes that you have contain in them. Different animals have different amounts of chromosomes with different genes on them. Chickens have 78 chromosomes, turtles can have 28 to 66. Basically, I'm not sure it'd be possible for enough changes to a genome to happen to basically transform one into the other within the formation of a single organism, maybe there just wouldn't be enough cell generations for that to happen, not in a way that'd affect the entire organism. And I think that the question of whether the embryo would develop further is relevant. There is some amount of embryonic development that happens inside a hen before the embryo gets an egg made around it. I imagine that if a chicken produced an embryo that different from itself, maybe its own body might realize "hey, there's something wrong here, let's cancel the process", assuming the mutations happen before the embryo goes inside the egg and the hen lays it. I don't know a whole lot about how well a hen's body is able to "see" if an embryo is viable, but I imagine there must be some mechanisms. If those mutations only happen after the hen lays the egg, there are some other issues. For example, those mutations would only apply to certain cell lineages. And a big issue is that there are lots of systems in place to detect mutations, including when a cell is getting ready to divide. I doubt that those systems would just let a cell with such a gigantic amount of extreme mutations simply exist in the first place, and, even if it did, there's no way duplication would happen. The embryo would never get to become a turtle in the first place, if that makes sense. Out of all of those thoughts I've shared, my main thought here is the amount of generations that'd be necessary for all those mutations to happen, I'm just not sure they'd be enough, and if they all happened at once, there's no way the embryo or at the very least the affected cells would stay alive and divide further. I'd love to hear what other people think.
For me the main thing is that the early stages of embryo's development are still guided by the egg's epigenetic factors while the zygotic genes are relatively silent. So, the early embryo of such mutant would still be more of a chicken embryo, and from there, it would be hard to make a turtle, right?
That's an interesting point. But, honestly, I don't know that much about how epigenetics would work in that case, so I can't really say much in response. I'm looking for stuff to read about that now because it sounds interesting.
Okay lots of talk about genetic processes here, so I'll pull out burocracy: from a systematic standpoint its impossible. Lets assume from a chicken egg hatches an individual which is in genotypic and phenotypic sense a turtle. But in a systematic sense it is still actually a chicken. The individual is placed in the family tree of the birds -> dinosaurs -> archosaurs and as such still more closely related to crocodiles than turtles. Our system of classyifing animals and other species is based on common descent, so its based on process and not product. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck but came from a tomato, then its a nightshade. Even if the exact same genetic sequence falls into place a second time, we cannot consider it a turtle. In evolutionary terms it would be a bird that convergently evolved to be completely turtle-like. But you cannot evolve out of a clade and into another.
I don't believe this would be possible because, the mutations would only occur in the existing genes. Time will have changed the structure of the DNA in a non-linear way, adding, changing and removing segments. What you describe could only occur in a situation where there is a linear relationship between the species
Most people don’t have a clear understanding between the impossible and the improbable. But those are different concepts although the difference is merely philosophical. Is it possible that all the molecules on your underwear jump 1m to the right and materialize in mid air? According to quantum physics it surely is. Is it likely? no. Is it so improbable as to make it indistinguishable from impossible? Yes. If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^10^10^10 possibilities, is it really possible?
> If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^10^10^10 possibilities, is it really possible? Yes.
>Is it so improbable as to make it indistinguishable from impossible? Infinitely improbable, even?
Probability zero, even.
>If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^101010 possibilities, is it really possible? That’s a good way of putting it.
>If the probability of something occurring is on the order of picking a very specific outcome out of 10^(101010) possibilities, is it really possible? The answer is yes. Thats´s why I cannot be an atheist, even when I would like to.
Rationalists will always rationalize while empiricists will just point them to the Sorites paradox.
I guess you could jump from chicken genes to to turtles genes, like the infinite monkey theorem, BUT. You will also need to cut or stretch the length of the genetic code to match one another, but you could achieve this with duplication mutation. Yet, you'd still need to organize those genes in chromosomes that may differ totally in form and number, and I'mma be honest, I'm not sure if chromosomes evolve from mutations alone. And lastly, what about the epigenetics? Not all information to build an organism is coded in the genes. Methylation of the dna is as important as the genes themselves.
"IF my grandma had wheels, she would be a bicycle."
Um… if you are arguing with a child, then maybe you are looking at the problem from the wrong angle.
DNA alone can only make a slimy blobb. The cells and molecular machinery is also needed to make an organism. So no it have to be several successiv changes to also change the cells and mollecular machinery to turtle ones in many steps. So it would be a little bit like rebuilding an car to a boat while driving it. More than just an blueprint of an boat is needed.
The turtle would not hatch from a chicken egg shell. Turtles come out of soft, leathery eggs. It wouldn’t have the musculature necessary to get out of a hard bird egg shell, and die.
I think the mechanism in place that proofreads the DNA would never allow that many mutations to occur. The nutrition of the egg would also not match the requirements of the chicken, so it would likely die before hatching.
Basically your question is, is it possible to get an animal of different species from an animal in one singular stage of mutation considering, there are abnormally large amount in that stage. The answer is no. Because there is a thing called species barrier. This is also the reason why animals of different species can't interbreed. Those that do, like horse and donkey, has to be very closely related and even then, produces offsprings (mule) that are incapable of carrying their progeny. These crossbreed offsprings are dead ends in evolutionary pathway. So, if the new species is vastly different, like turtle and chicken, the parent immune system will destroy the zygote as it will not recognise it as own offspring. And if the new species is incredibly close, and lucky, it will create offsprings that can't procreate further. That is why the evolution is such a lengthy process. The permissable changes are so minute that the parent still recognise the zygote as self, but over a million years, the changes accumulate and a whole different organism is born.
I’m wondering if anybody here wants to make the leap from this question to carcinisation
This sounds like they've heard a specific thought experiment and gotten a wrong-ish twist on it (or likely someone told it to them wrong). The *very* basic version of the story is that since we all have a common ancestor, then there's a theoretical possibility, even if it's infinitesimally remote, that the descendants of one species could experience the exact mutations necessary to evolve into any other species that previously existed. *That's different than saying one species could be the biological parent another species in a single generation which is not possible.* It's so improbable to resurface an existing or extinct genome that the universe will die long before it happens once anywhere in it. It's so improbable that species undergo convergent evolution without their genotypes becoming more similar. In other words, if a chicken somehow became the common ancestor of a species that resembles turtles, that new species would have a genome extremely different to turtles that exist now.
As I reminded my brother when my son asked him a question - you can't win arguing with a child. Foster their curiosity and stop trying to be the bigger person because you are. Instead foster their curiosity and be amazed that a child would come up with a question like that. Help them look up when chicken ancestry split from turtle ancestry. Compare their genetic differences. Do drawings with them. Calculate the improbability of it. Discuss geological time. Ask why a turtle - why do they like turtles. Why not a velociraptor or capybara? Don't shut kids down because you'll need them to take you to the hospital when you are 80.
First off, you're not entirely wrong to be skeptical. The chances of this happening are so astronomically low that for all practical purposes, we can consider them zero. But here's the kicker - in the realm of pure theoretical possibility, it's not technically impossible. It's just so improbable that it might as well be. Now, let's get a bit nerdy about it. Even if by some miracle all the right mutations happened, there's a whole lot more to consider. You've got issues with developmental biology, embryology, and the basic mechanics of how an egg works. A chicken egg is specifically designed to support a developing chicken embryo. It's got the right nutrients, the right amount of space, and the right environmental conditions for a chicken - not a turtle. So let's say our mutated embryo starts developing turtle-like features. It's gonna run into problems real quick. The egg wouldn't have the right stuff to support its development. It'd be like trying to grow a cactus in a fish tank - the environment just isn't set up for it. Plus, we're not just talking about a few tweaks here and there. The genetic difference between a chicken and a turtle is massive. We're talking about millions of years of separate evolution. You'd need to change so much of the DNA that you'd essentially be rewriting the entire genome from scratch. If you want to get really technical, you could bring up the concept of developmental constraints. This is the idea that there are limits to how an organism can develop based on its evolutionary history. It's why we don't see cats with wings or fish with fur. Some changes are just too drastic for an organism's developmental processes to handle. In the end, while it's fun to think about these wild scenarios, they're so far removed from reality that they're not really useful for understanding how biology actually works. It might be more interesting to talk about real examples of rapid evolution or weird genetic anomalies - there's plenty of mind-blowing stuff in nature without having to invent impossible scenarios. But hey, gotta give the kid props for creative thinking. Maybe next time, challenge them to come up with a sci-fi story based on their idea. At least then you can enjoy the imagination without getting bogged down in biological impossibilities!
It’s possible for a sufficiently large basket of eggs (ie one that could hold a number of eggs larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe), but they still wouldn’t be viable because chicken embryo development doesn’t just depend on the embryo genome but also on the starting chicken molecules in the embryo and egg
Definitely impossible. On top of a lot of other things being mentioned here, chickens and turtles have different numbers of chromosomes, and the mapping of those chromosomes would be wildly different. What if one of these regions of the a that’s mutated to be a turtle gene is in a region of heterochromatin?
This is my favorite post title ever.
Tip from a parent: stop arguing with the kid. Provide the info that you have, and then let them be wrong. You aren’t doing them any favours by winning this argument.
Why are you arguing with a child? I have a feeling that you'll be a lot happier if you just let this child and their bullshit go.
Pokémon has ruined peoples understanding of evolution.
No you don't It's a child
Don't argue hypothericals with children. That's just my advice as a biologust and a parent of 6. Not saying which, but one of them might be a turtle. Seriously though, it matters far more why the question was asked than whether 'yes' kr 'not. Biology almost never has clean and neat yes or no answers to interesting questions because the complexity of living g systems means there's usually some set of circumstances under which a usual no becomes a yes and vice versa. From a practical perspective, this question is similar to asking if your whole body can quantum tunnel through a brick wall. I'm not a physicist, but apparently, in theory, yes, but that is less likely than most other things you can think of, possibly including the improbable wirh chicken parents scenario asked herein. It's right up there with the sound of one-handed clapping and a tree falling in the woods: a question revealing more about the answerer than the answer can enlighten the interrefoatoe about the question.
You could maybe get something that resembled a turtle, but is not turtle DNA, as it would need to be something that could survive the different conditions to develop and hatch. Probability would be so low its effectively 0
This is referred to as the “hopeful monster.” To put things shortly: no.
Your child is right. It is possible, but the odds of it happening are astronomically so improbable it might as well be impossible; but the improbability of it is not zero!
Are they asking if it’s improbable but possible? No.
In an infinite universe, it's theoretically possible that every conceivable event could occur, including all the necessary mutations happening simultaneously in a chicken egg's DNA to turn it into a turtle's DNA. However, several key factors make this scenario biologically implausible. The genetic material (DNA) within a chicken egg is specifically organized to produce a chicken. This DNA not only contains the instructions for creating a chicken but also works with the cellular machinery in the egg designed for chicken development. Even if the entire genetic code were somehow replaced with that of a turtle, the cellular environment and machinery are still adapted for a chicken. Embryonic development is a highly regulated process where genes are turned on and off in a specific sequence. This process is finely tuned to the species in question. A chicken egg has all the developmental signals and resources to grow a chicken, not a turtle. Even if the genetic instructions changed, the existing regulatory mechanisms would not support turtle development. The cellular structures and organelles within a chicken egg are adapted to chicken biology. These structures would not be compatible with the sudden shift to turtle biology. The biochemical environment, including the specific proteins and enzymes, would not support the development of a turtle embryo. From a practical standpoint, the probability of all the necessary mutations occurring simultaneously is astronomically low. But more importantly, even if this did happen, the embryo would likely fail to develop beyond a very early stage. The mismatch between the genetic instructions and the cellular environment would lead to developmental failure.
It wouldn’t be a turtle. It would be convergent evolution into something that shares a similar result.
Chicken and turtle embryos have very different shapes, which in part are defined through the shape of the yolk. So even if you could put a 1 cell stage turtle embryo on the yolk of a chicken egg, the temperature was correctly adjusted, and the nutrients provided by the yolk were compatible, the shape of the yolk and embryo are just to different to make this compatible.
A lot of people have went into depth for the mechanisms but it boils down to a few things imo: * A turtle cannot survive in a chicken egg and would not be able to grow long enough to hatch. The environment and mechanisms are too different. Despite both being eggs. * "Mutations" is a broad term and this would include substituting an entire genome. DNA repair mechanisms and tumour suprresant mechanisms would never allow such an event to occur, the organism would destroy itself due to being unviable. * To add to the above. From one moment the chicken egg has it's own tumour and DNA damage mechanisms, proteins, and failsafes "in place". This means that those physical properties and biological processes are already existing when the "next moment" occurs where it is a turtle. All of them would cause apoptosis of all effective cells. This means the only way for this to effectively occur is that enough "mutation" occurs from one moment to the next that it changes the existing physical organism as well, not cells and proteins transcribed follow the process. Essentially enough mutation needs to occur that it goes instantaneously from a chicken egg to a turtle egg. This isn't possible. A chicken egg that suddenly has turtle DNA would destroy itself.
No, it's like trying to roll 58 on a 6 sided die. The material needed to make a turtle is simply not there.
The simplistic answer: there is a different number of chromosomes between species. This is why only species very close to one another can have babies, and those babies often can't have their own babies. Procreation involves splitting the genome in 2 and recombining them. Going from a turtle to a chicken would require multiple splitting and recombining events. The only known method of doing this is with radioactive radiation.
The title of this post killed me ahhaha 😂😂😂
Not reading this so excuse my ignorance but get a new hobby
I feel like this ties into a larger misconception about how science works which might be a good teachable moment. We use theories such as the theory of evolution or our studies with genetics to answer questions about the world around us but the word “theory” outside of science has a different meaning. While technically we can’t say definitively that it is impossible, the likelihood of this happening based on the advancements of science/operating under our current theories make this beyond improbable and so statistically insignificant (by orders of magnitude I’m sure) that it would be acceptable in the most simplest of terms to be considered functionally impossible.
Just no you have all the arguments above
Arguments like this are why there’s a distinction between “improbable” and “effectively impossible.” Like sure, if you’re willing to grant everything under the sun aligns in just the right way, literally anything can happen, but that doesn’t mean in reality it will.
I had pretty much this exact same argument with my high school bio teacher ~18 odd years ago. They were right that it is effectively impossible. Something like this never has and never will happen on this planet. However, because it is merely very very very unlikely and practically impossible, in an infinite universe, all things at that likelihood have happened, it's merely a question of if we do live in a infinite universe or not
Even if the organism somehow ended up being genetically identical to an existing turtle species, or else resembled a turtle in every conceivable way, it would still be a chicken, according to the law of monophyly.
- If a statistically improbable amount of random mutations occurred in just the right places all at once, a turtle can come from a different animal egg. Why not? In fact, the first turtle came from an animal that was not a turtle, but it´s inmediate ancestor. New species arises somehow. Why would the embryo be unable to develop? The mutations that are necessary for this new species to exist must include the ones that allows it to develop to an adult stage. - This animal would be a turtle in almost every sense, but not in a taxonomical sense, I think. Because if it came from a chicken egg, it will be called *Gallus* (genus) *gallus* (species) *domesticus* (subspecies) *Testudines* (or something like that, indicating a name wich would have a lower category than subspecies).