Likewise, if an animal is brilliant at survival, has an efficient metabolism, resists all diseases, learns faster than its competitors, and lives to a ripe old age, but is infertile, then its superior genes are simply not available to its descendants. Everything can be inherited except sterility. None of your direct ancestors died childless. Consequently, if we are to understand how human nature evolved, the very core of our inquiry must be reproduction, for reproductive success is the examination that all human genes must pass if they are not to be squeezed out by natural selection.