- in the presence of a strong selectional pressure, populations will hill climb - without it, neutral mutations will dominate neutral mutations can find avenues to new hills, but it's a random, undirected search mate selection is dominant when populations are not under high selectional pressure mate selection provides a selectional signal in the absence of one, replacing neutral mutations/random walk with a hill climb in a direction defined by the mate selection criteria mate selection criteria - signals (honest) - runaway could runaway MSC be essential for "spandrels"/"stepping stones"? is this how populations emerge from fitness tar pits? if the MSC are oracle like, does it help? if the MSC are random but fixed, does it help? how oracle-like do MSC need to be to be helpful? **how non-fixed do random MSC need to be to be helpful?** In pic-breeder, do people have temporary objectives that the strive toward, only to abandon those objectives when something more promising emerges? Is that a reasonable model for MSC?