Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

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Countryboy
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Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by Countryboy »

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/201 ... -wasteful/
Was it just me, or did the author come across as completely clueless? The fact that it comes from an edu website only makes things even worse.

Someone needs to explain to him about the birds and the bees. Chickens lay unfertilized eggs because they never mated with a rooster. (I wonder if he thinks it is ok for women to abort fertilized eggs/embryos.)

Women 'waste' an egg a month. That's a lot of life potential that never happens.

Most chicken eggs get eaten, so it is hardly wasteful. And nutritionally, I don't really think it matters or not if the egg was fertilized before you eat it.

And the comment about farmers choosing the seeds from juiciest apples is incredible ignorance. Apples do not grow true to seed. When you find an apple tree with the juiciest apples, you take cuttings of the twigs and graft them onto other rootstocks. You clone that parent stock, instead of propagating it by reproduction.

But what do I know. I'm just a dumb farm kid who never got mis-educated/indoctrinated at one of those .edu places.
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Re: Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by BadBeeKeeper »

Countryboy wrote: January 28th, 2021, 8:52 am https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/201 ... -wasteful/
Was it just me, or did the author come across as completely clueless? The fact that it comes from an edu website only makes things even worse.

Someone needs to explain to him about the birds and the bees. Chickens lay unfertilized eggs because they never mated with a rooster. (I wonder if he thinks it is ok for women to abort fertilized eggs/embryos.)

Women 'waste' an egg a month. That's a lot of life potential that never happens.

Most chicken eggs get eaten, so it is hardly wasteful. And nutritionally, I don't really think it matters or not if the egg was fertilized before you eat it.

And the comment about farmers choosing the seeds from juiciest apples is incredible ignorance. Apples do not grow true to seed. When you find an apple tree with the juiciest apples, you take cuttings of the twigs and graft them onto other rootstocks. You clone that parent stock, instead of propagating it by reproduction.

But what do I know. I'm just a dumb farm kid who never got mis-educated/indoctrinated at one of those .edu places.
It's just you.

Apparently, you must have got distracted by a squirrel before you finished the article.
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Re: Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by Countryboy »

Nope. I didn't get distracted by a squirrel.

In fact, I went back and read the article again. I couldn't help but ask myself what kind of an idiot would write such nonsense, and what kind of educational facility would ever allow such nonsense to be published and affiliated with them. It gives both them and the author a bad name.

And from what I can tell, the bad name is rightfully deserved.

I just took the time to read the esteemed author's bio. Dr. Christopher Baird is a professor of physics...yet writing about biology. No wonder he comes across as completely clueless.

I genuinely feel sorry for anyone trying to learn anything of value from Texas A&M if the teachers are anything like Dr. Baird. He should be ashamed of himself, and Texas A&M should be ashamed for hiring him and letting him publish nonsense on their website.
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Re: Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by BadBeeKeeper »

The only problem I see with that article, is the quip about the apple seeds...but that is completely understandable. Many kids hear the story of 'Johnny Appleseed' and that is the full extent of their knowledge of how to get an apple tree, they are totally unaware that nowadays most tree propagation is done by cutting and grafting. Fact is, though I have been growing things for a long time, I was unaware of that fact until I took a notion to plant an orchard and sought out specific education on the subject a few years ago.

The rest is 'just you'.

You said:
Someone needs to explain to him about the birds and the bees. Chickens lay unfertilized eggs because they never mated with a rooster. (I wonder if he thinks it is ok for women to abort fertilized eggs/embryos.)
The author's last paragraph clearly shows that he doesn't need anyone to 'explain the birds and bees' to him, which is why I asked if you got distracted before getting to the end of it:
The next question is perhaps, "Why do chickens lay unfertilized eggs at all?" The reason is that the egg is mostly developed before being fertilized. The chicken cannot know in advance whether the egg will end up fertilized or not, so it just has to go ahead and grow the egg in the hopes that it will be fertilized. In the wild, this system works well because mating among fowls is common and most eggs do end up fertilized.
Your 'self-righteous' screed did little more than point out the fact that you, apparently, completely misunderstood the point of the article, and compounded it by harping on an imagined controversy that did/does not exist. The irony here is monumental.
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Re: Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by Countryboy »

Your 'self-righteous' screed did little more than point out the fact that you, apparently, completely misunderstood the point of the article, and compounded it by harping on an imagined controversy that did/does not exist. The irony here is monumental.
No, I understood it completely. The guy is an idiot.

The author got hung up on the "unfertilized' thing. He could have made the argument of why chickens were bred to lay so many eggs, but he twisted it into why do chickens lay so many unfertilized eggs. That turns the article into complete nonsense.
In the wild, this system works well because mating among fowls is common and most eggs do end up fertilized.
Once again, pure garbage nonsense. Whether or not the eggs are fertilized is irrelevant to the article.

In the wild, jungle fowl (what chickens were developed from) lay very few eggs.
Chickens do not survive in the wild. Too many predators eat them for dinner. Today's chickens survive only by human intervention.

Ironically, when a hen goes 'broody,' her rate of egg laying drops off. (Going broody means she wants to sit on a clutch of eggs and hatch them out.) Most of today's chickens are raised in incubators because going broody has been bred out of most of them. Most hens won't hatch out chicks. It is very rare to find hens that will sit on a nest for the full 21 days. Sometimes a hen will go broody for a few days or a week, and then leave the nest. If you want hens to hatch out chicks you use a good broody hen (usually a poor egg laying breed) and put eggs from other chickens under her and use her as a surrogate.

Even if today's chickens were able to survive in the wild without being eaten by predators, it is irrelevant if the eggs are fertilized or not because the hen isn't going to sit on the nest to hatch them out.

The author is clearly an idiot, and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

Anyone who doesn't recognize the author's idiocy is likely an idiot also.

The unfortunate reality of the world we live in is that college dumbs people down. At one time the brightest people went to college, and were able to better themselves. Then the government came up with the stupid idea of college loans. Colleges loved it, because it was easy money. Idiots flooded the colleges, and the colleges had to dumb down all the classes so people could graduate. The bright kids got held back by the idiots they were with, and the rest of the kids were idiots to begin with.
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Re: Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by BadBeeKeeper »

Countryboy wrote: February 3rd, 2021, 3:57 pm The author is clearly an idiot, and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

Anyone who doesn't recognize the author's idiocy is likely an idiot also.
Oh. My. Word.

Thanks for the laugh, you have just made my day and I'm probably going to have a stupid smile pasted on my face for most of it.

The author is most definitely not an idiot, and I can't even find the will to be insulted because it is so funny that you keep claiming that he is. You have completely missed the whole point of the article, and have chosen to instead focus on an imagined controversy. I'm not even going to bother to try to explain it to you because I have a feeling that it will be a complete waste of time- I'm pretty sure that, no matter what I say, you are going to stick to your guns and insist that your POV is the only correct one. C'est la vie.

And now you want to go off on a rant about education...
The unfortunate reality of the world we live in is that college dumbs people down. At one time the brightest people went to college, and were able to better themselves. Then the government came up with the stupid idea of college loans. Colleges loved it, because it was easy money. Idiots flooded the colleges, and the colleges had to dumb down all the classes so people could graduate. The bright kids got held back by the idiots they were with, and the rest of the kids were idiots to begin with.
Hilarious. This is even funnier than your racist diatribe on IQ.

Have you been to college? Do you know anyone who has been to college...other than me, of course?

Would you like to guess my IQ? I'll give you a hint- As an enlisted man in the Army, I received an in-service nomination to West Point. I've worked with people of all kinds, in the service and on production lines, and I'll tell you what- skin color is no indicator of IQ. I've seen just as many stupid white boys as any other kind.

Perceived differences in IQ can have more to do with cultural and educational differences than with actual intelligence. I know a half-indigenous, dark-skinned, dope-smoking French Canadian fellow that can swap a motor faster than a middle-class white preppy can find the dipstick to check his oil. You can't give the same test to people who were raised under completely different circumstances, conditions and experiences.

'Idiots hold the bright kids back'. So funny, and so wrong. I don't even know where to start...someone who is 'bright' isn't going to let himself get 'held back' by anyone, least of all by 'idiots'...and especially not in a situation where one's education is mostly self-directed.

Thanks again for the laugh.
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Re: Why did evolution create a chicken that lays so many unfertilized eggs when that is so wasteful?

Unread post by Countryboy »

You have completely missed the whole point of the article, and have chosen to instead focus on an imagined controversy. I'm not even going to bother to try to explain it to you because I have a feeling that it will be a complete waste of time-
Oh, please do explain. However, please keep in mind that speculation is not permitted in a court of law, or any rational debate. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. There is no interpretation or speculation of any alternative meaning.
This is even funnier than your racist diatribe on IQ.
My comments on the IQ differences of race is not racist. Scientific facts are not racist.
Have you been to college? Do you know anyone who has been to college...other than me, of course?
No, I didn't go to college. For the most part, I consider it a terrible mis-use of money. If a person took the money they were going to spend on a college education, and started their own business, regardless of the business outcome, the kid who didn't go to college and started a business is going to have a much better knowledge and be better prepared for life than the kid who went to college. (STEM fields tend to be an exception.)

Yes, I know many people who have gone to college. First, they have overwhelmingly been indoctrinated with Marxist ideology, and a belief that the welfare state is a good thing. Secondly, for many of them, I have to ask myself how much worse they would be doing had they not gone to college, because even after several years of a college education, if they are lucky they are where a high school graduate should be. But then again, when we consider that only 1 in 4 people in America are literate enough to read anything more than a newspaper, that's not saying much. (That goes back to IQ. If you have an IQ less than 90, you have difficulty reading and comprehending written instructions.)
Would you like to guess my IQ? I'll give you a hint- As an enlisted man in the Army, I received an in-service nomination to West Point.
West Point normally requires people to have an IQ around 130, unless they are minority races there under affirmative action. West Point officers tend to be primarily white, simply because they could not find enough minority applicants who could meet the IQ requirements. So, they lowered the IQ requirements to allow more minorities into West Point.

To be honest, admitting to being a welfare parasite is something I think people should be deeply ashamed of. I do understand that welfare (such as military dis-service) can help underprivileged kids, but working in any taxpayer funded job is a sign of deep moral failing.
I've worked with people of all kinds, in the service and on production lines, and I'll tell you what- skin color is no indicator of IQ. I've seen just as many stupid white boys as any other kind.
Do you know what selection bias is? The military automatically rejects anyone with an IQ of 83 or less. This is almost half of the black population in the US, but only about 12% of whites. You don't see the people who didn't get accepted into the military. The people in the military that you do see were selected so that they are fairly similar to everyone else in terms of brains.

The military already selected for IQ. You were then exposed to people of all colors who met certain minimum thresholds for brains, and then you tell me that skin color is no indicator of IQ. Wow. Big surprise. You only saw a grouping after it had been selected for IQ.

Yeah, there are stupid white boys in the military. The military is a common way for underprivileged white boys to try to move up the social ladder. The funny thing is, when you look at inner city white kids versus urban white kids, the inner city kids are about one standard deviation lower in IQ than their white counterparts in the suburbs. IQ is genetically inherited, and underprivileged kids often come from lower IQ underprivileged parents.

So what happens is the military primarily attracts the dumber end of the IQ spectrum of white kids, and also only accepts the smarter end of the IQ spectrum of minority kids. So if you have a 100 IQ black kid, (one standard deviation above US black average IQ) compared to an 85 IQ white kid (one standard deviation below average US white IQ)...yep, selection bias is going to severely affect your worldview.
Perceived differences in IQ can have more to do with cultural and educational differences than with actual intelligence. I know a half-indigenous, dark-skinned, dope-smoking French Canadian fellow that can swap a motor faster than a middle-class white preppy can find the dipstick to check his oil.
Apples to oranges. That example is not an indication of IQ.
IQ will measure how fast someone can learn how to swap a motor. It is not a measure of how fast they can do a task once it has been learned. Learning how to swap a motor is fluid intelligence (measured by IQ) whereas actually swapping the motor is crystallized intelligence (which is not measured by IQ).
'Idiots hold the bright kids back'. So funny, and so wrong. I don't even know where to start...someone who is 'bright' isn't going to let himself get 'held back' by anyone, least of all by 'idiots'...and especially not in a situation where one's education is mostly self-directed.
The educational system (public school and college) is not self-directed education.

I recall a high school teacher contacting my parents because she was concerned that my brother was epileptic. My brother was bored to tears in that class, and to amuse himself, he would cross his eyes, and then roll his eyes around in a figure 8 pattern.
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