Since I've heard so much about Signalling theory before, most of the highlights for me were epistemological in general.
The simplest explanation for almost anything anywhere is randomness. In fact, almost always, whatever we explain, we usually explain with some systematic theory plus randomness. We're always adding in some degree of randomness when we explain almost any data set we have. So one very simple explanation for anything is just to crank down the systematic part and crank up the noise and say “It's all noise, it's all random.”
This reminds me of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism. Why should reason come to truth when evolution has so many other ways motivating behavior?
you might consciously decide, I'm going to go to school so I will look good. But it didn't have to be that way. Some young men decide they consciously want to be a rock star because it'll attract women. And many young men do that, but of course many other young men decide they want to be a rock star because they love rock music.
Now, either way works evolutionarily. It's the behavior that produces the outcomes and not necessarily your rationalization. For some kinds of behavior, evolution can give you a conscious desire to be seen, to look good. And then you consciously make a plan to achieve that looking good.
Of course, that's what all randomness is really. Complexity.
You see a pile of rocks on the ground. There were very specific forces that put each rock there in its place. If you don't know what those are, you tend to summarize it in a simple randomness theory. Which is adequate if you don't know those details.
This is a way of making sense of the common saying "I don't believe in luck".
