# What if people laid eggs?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 3, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162 "2009-03-03T17:11:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/21 "2009-03-03T20:02:06Z")
Tabloids would pay millions for pictures of celebrity eggs.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/22 "2009-03-03T20:39:45Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Tabloids would pay millions for pictures of celebrity eggs.
Celebrities would probably lay Faberge eggs.
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### Author:  [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/23 "2009-03-03T21:12:54Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> True. However, allow me to point out that echinoderms have NO BOOBS!! Thus supporting my previous point.
Except the boobs are just refined plumbing. I don’t see any reason boobs wouldn’t have evolved.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/24 "2009-03-03T21:15:08Z")
Humans could have much larger brains. So we’d either be smarter, or more tasty for zombies.
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### Author:  [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/25 "2009-03-03T21:21:39Z")
In theory, you could bring your egg to work with you, so you wouldn’t need to sit home with it.
However, if eggs that we consume are unfertilized ones, would a woman lay an unfertilized egg once a month?
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/26 "2009-03-03T21:38:29Z")
> [@autz](#):
>
> How would the world be different if people laid eggs in insted of giving birth to live young?
Well, Helen of Troy was hatched from an egg. How did that work out?
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/27 "2009-03-03T21:41:00Z")
OK- I just nominated this for threadspotting. Too funny!
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/28 "2009-03-03T21:51:22Z")
> [@autz](#):
>
> This came up in a discussion with my 9 year old son this morning: How would the world be different if people laid eggs in insted of giving birth to live young?
You would be Dejah Thoris and I would claim my £5.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/29 "2009-03-03T22:24:18Z")
> [@Gus\_Gusterson](#):
>
> An egg that’s big enough to house a full-term human baby is going to be pretty large. It’s not coming out of the average pelvis. Our babies would either have to be less well-developed when they hatch (smaller egg) or our bodies would have to be very different so that a woman could pass an egg that large.
Or, the egg could be laid with a soft shell that only hardens after being laid. And the baby could be much more undeveloped, since it would still have life support after birth, making birth easier. Women might in fact have narrower hips for that reason.
> [@Gus\_Gusterson](#):
>
> If she laid an egg, I doubt she would carry it to work with her, so she would have to stop working right away unless she had someone at home to watch it. It’s possible that we as a society would think that it is OK to leave an egg unattended.
I bet we’d have “egg safes”; armored and insulated boxes with electric heaters designed to protect the egg from everything from theft to fires to a building collapse.
Assuming that the eggs need to be kept warm, I expect the development of ever increasingly sophisticated methods of keeping them warm without a woman having to hug or sit on them. Apes would sit on their eggs; pre-industrial human societies would probably have some sort of small enclosed “egg house” with low burning coals, to provide a warm but not-too-hot temperature. Women would need to hang around and check the fire, but could do other things besides squatting on eggs all day. The invention of reliable artificial heat would be a major driver for women’s liberation.
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### Author:  [@stucco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stucco)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/30 "2009-03-03T22:32:20Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#):
>
> However, if eggs that we consume are unfertilized ones, would a woman lay an unfertilized egg once a month?
That’s what I was thinking. Would we eat our unfertilized eggs (giant hard boiled eggs!) or view them with a bit of disgust, the same way some see a woman’s period?
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### Author:  [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/31 "2009-03-03T22:42:06Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#):
>
> In theory, you could bring your egg to work with you, so you wouldn’t need to sit home with it.
>
> However, if eggs that we consume are unfertilized ones, would a woman lay an unfertilized egg once a month?
I’d rather lay an egg than have my period, FWIW.
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### Author:  [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/32 "2009-03-03T22:49:29Z")
“Daddy, which came first: the human or the egg?”
“Well, son, I don’t think your mommy came at all! BOO-YA!!!”
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/33 "2009-03-03T23:19:29Z")
> [@stucco](#):
>
> That’s what I was thinking. Would we eat our unfertilized eggs (giant hard boiled eggs!) or view them with a bit of disgust, the same way some see a woman’s period?
Probably the latter, for the same reason cannibalism is rare; it’s a good way to get disease.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/34 "2009-03-03T23:26:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Assuming that the eggs need to be kept warm, I expect the development of ever increasingly sophisticated methods of keeping them warm without a woman having to hug or sit on them. Apes would sit on their eggs; pre-industrial human societies would probably have some sort of small enclosed “egg house” with low burning coals, to provide a warm but not-too-hot temperature. Women would need to hang around and check the fire, but could do other things besides squatting on eggs all day. The invention of reliable artificial heat would be a major driver for women’s liberation.
And I bet conservatives would bemoan the women who didn’t put fire-checking at the very top of their priorities. And we’d get glurge about the “good old days” when women sat on their eggs themselves without those newfangled egg houses.
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/35 "2009-03-03T23:37:39Z")
Eventually there would be a saga thread on this board titled “We have human eggs”.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/36 "2009-03-03T23:50:32Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> True. However, allow me to point out that echinoderms have NO BOOBS!! Thus supporting my previous point.
Breasts don’t make any difference in your ability to feed a baby, so we might still evolve them.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/37 "2009-03-03T23:57:05Z")
There are a couple major issues with human babies developing in eggs.
First, there’s only so much of a life support system you can fit in an egg of a given size. So you either have to lay very large eggs, or delay laying them until the fetus is mostly developed. This isn’t such a big deal for other egg-laying animals because their babies develop very quickly. Our long gestation period would be very problematic.
The other issue is that, if you’re going to have a hard-shelled egg, it has to be large enough to support the infant at birth. And given that fish have soft-shelled eggs but later animals don’t, there’s probably a good reason why soft-shells wouldn’t work for us. Ladies, if you think giving birth is bad now, imagine trying to squeeze out a rock hard object the size of a watermelon.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/38 "2009-03-04T00:07:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Except the boobs are just refined plumbing. I don’t see any reason boobs wouldn’t have evolved.
For the same reason that they didn’t evolve in the monotremes. It’s very misleading to describe platypi as “primitive” mammals (or, in fact, to describe any current species as “primitive”): They’ve been evolving for just as long as anyone else.
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/39 "2009-03-04T00:29:52Z")
> [@autz](#):
>
> Animals which lay eggs don’t nurse the babies, so either parents could feed it equally well.
\*\>cough\< \* Platypus _\>cough\<_
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-people-laid-eggs/488162/40 "2009-03-04T00:40:55Z")
Instead of cribs, parents would go shopping at Ikea to pick up a NÅEST for the wee ones, and when they get a bit older, back to the store for a KØØPP.
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