It’s probably waaaaay more complex than this.
Researchers developed a computer model to simulate the human evolutionary process, and what they discovered was a possible explanation for why chicks dig “less supportive partners”, aka jerks.
We generated a large virtual population of males and females, the males all differing genetically in their ability to invest resources in raising children. The females had a genetically determined preference for this male quality, which meant that females with a strong preference were more likely to end up with a male who invested more.
The males and females that paired up in our model then mated and produced offspring, who inherited (with a small chance of mutation) the investing qualities and mating preferences of their parents. We ran our model over thousands of generations, observing which genetic traits thrived and which didn’t.
Evolutionary biologists had built this kind of model before to understand mating preferences in other animals, but we added…
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