system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is the seed the spicy part of the pepper?
gpt
The seed isn't the spicy part of the pepper, it's the membrane *inside* the pepper that's spicy.  Since the seeds are connected to the membrane, they get spicy oils on them & scraping them off often removes a bunch of that membrane so people erroneously believe that the seeds are spicy.

Why are peppers spicy?  To stop most animals from eating them and digesting the seeds.  Birds, OTOH, eat peppers because they *don't* taste the spice & seeds pass through their digestive systems unharmed.  This means a bird flies away and spreads the seeds over a larger area than something like a squirrel would.