Editing 2464: Muller's Ratchet

{{comic
| number    = 2464
| date      = May 17, 2021
| title     = Muller's Ratchet
| image     = mullers_ratchet.png
| titletext = Who knew you could learn so much about sexual reproduction from looking at pictures on the internet!
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Randall reviews a passage explaining the internet with terms associated with evolution, comparing the constant resharing and changing of popular photos to evolutionary processes, namely {{w|Muller's ratchet}} and {{w|Genetic recombination|recombination}}.

An image of [[Science Girl]] showing a cat to [[Cueball]], who is apparently shocked, is used as an example of the subject phenomenon. This image is altered in various ways:
* A caption is added to the photo as a whole, possibly using an online "meme maker" tool. Many memes are made in this manner, such as the Office Space [https://imgflip.com/meme/That-Would-Be-Great "that would be great"] memes.
* Individual labels are placed on the participants (which include the cat). These labels may be literal, but often they are metaphorical. A common metaphorical example is the {{w|Distracted-boyfriend meme}}.
* This seems to be unmodified from the original, except being a bit fuzzy. This is likely a comment on how most people, due to being unfamiliar with image formats, will often pick settings when saving a picture that results in the image being compressed noticeably (usually via exporting as a JPG as opposed to a PNG).
* A caption is added at the top and bottom of the picture, again possibly by an online meme maker, and the photo cropped.
* A sword has been added to the picture, held in a comical position by a participant (the cat) who wouldn't usually have one.{{Citation needed}} These are typically just done as a joke. This image is also cropped and has its aspect ratio changed.
** A watermark is added to this image, having been added by "SwordApp" a fictional (as of this comic's publication) app used to add the sword
* Individual labels are placed on the participants here as well.
* Individual labels are placed on the main (human) participants only. This might be used to only apply metaphorical meanings to the people and not to the object being held (the cat).

Recombination is the combination of genetic material from chromosomes, shuffling genes during meiosis. In this case, it is being compared to shuffling and recombining aspects of an edited digital image.

Sometimes, genetic mutation can create better genes - like the sword being given to the cat in the image. Other changes remove or degrade from the genetic history, without apparent detriment, just because the circumstances do not currently confer any significant advantage to it. If the 'lost' ability is perhaps useful in dealing with an infrequent environmental stress then the loss of its utility might be felt a generation or two later.

With recombination, useful novel changes can be shuffled into the population without necessarily bringing in a less useful mutation, creating descendents with both the obvious advantages (a sword) and the previously more established resilience (the fuller frame).

The caption in this comic jokes that while the passage is explaining the spread of Internet content using evolution, Randall feels that image memes (like the one shown in the comic) have become so ubiquitous that it now seems more intuitive to instead explain evolution using the metaphor of images on the Internet.

The degradation of digital images has previously been explored in [[1683: Digital Data]].

The title text has a double meaning, referring both to the ways these particular images on the Internet illustrate these evolutionary processes (which are driven by the mechanisms of biological reproduction, including sexual reproduction) and to {{tvtropes|TheInternetIsForPorn|the amount of erotic imagery illustrating the mechanics of sexual activity one might find on the Internet}}.

==Transcript==
:[A caption sits above a slightly greyed-out photo of Science Girl holding out a cat to Cueball, who has his hand over his face and is leaning away. Below are arrows leading to much smaller variations of the photo, all altered in some way.]
:[From left to right: Image with the sides cropped and black text bordered by white in the bottom center; image with black text in white box with black border above cat, on Science Girl, and on Cueball; image identical to the original but with softer edges; image cropped around all sides to exclude all negative space around frame, with white text bordered by black near the top and bottom center; image cropped to cut out half of Science Girl and Cueball's legs and featuring the cat holding a sword out at Cueball; image same as the original except with black text bordered by white on top of the cat, Science Girl, and Cueball; and image blurred out and at low resolution with black text in white oval on top of Science Girl and Cueball.]
:Caption above: When a photo goes around on social media, people create lots of new versions of it.

:[A larger depiction of an image altered to cut out some of Science Girl and Cueball's legs and the cat holding a sword to the left of a caption, with a faint, shadowed wordmark saying "Made with ''SwordApp'']
:Caption: Sometimes, one of the edited versions becomes more popular and supplants the original. But often, the new version isn't made from the best copy of the image. It may be pixelated, cropped, or watermarked.
:[The same image appears with a more transparent box around it showing the cropped-out areas and an arrow pointing into it saying "lost". To the left is a caption.]
:Caption: As long as those flaws are minor enough that they don't cancel out the big change, the new version can still win out. Each good change brings with it random background damage. The degradation only goes one way. Once an image is cropped, its descendants will be, too. This steady loss of information is called '''''Muller's Ratchet'''''.
:[The original photo and the edited replacement are side-by-side, with the original on the right and the replacement on the left. The area above the cat where the sword is shown in the replacement is circled with a dotted line in both images. In the original, the area inside is greyed out, and in the replacement, the entire image is greyed out except for that area.]
:[Arrows point from the emphasized parts of both images to a new photo below that combines the original image with the sword from the replacement. The dotted line is still present. A caption sits to the left.]
:Caption: But there's a solution. The old versions are still around, so if you have an image editor that lets you splice together parts of two images, you can make a new version with the best parts of both. This process is called '''''recombination...''''']
:[All previous panels are grouped in one large panel, with a caption below the entire frame]
:Caption: People use evolutionary metaphors to explain the spread of internet content, but at this point we have so much more experience with the internet that I feel like it often makes more sense the other way around.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Computers]]