3252: Ancestral Genomes

Ancestral Genomes

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Title text: SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: No further research is needed as it is frankly none of our business.

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Explanation

This is one of 45 incomplete explanations: This page was DELETED TO RESPECT THE COMIC’S PRIVACY. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

A genotype is the complete genetic makeup of an individual, i.e. all of its genes. In humans, genotypes are almost always inherited from an individual’s parents; the two parents’ genotypes combine during sexual reproduction to form the genotype of the child. Mutations do occur, where parts of the DNA change randomly in a way that gives rise to a new genotype, and each human has about 60 such mutations, on average, out of about 20,000 genes. However, most mutations are "silent", i.e. not causing any visible changes. Depending on the behavior of the mutation, and if it even occurs to any gamete cells or those that produce them, it may spread throughout a population, or disappear again, or end up only being present in a certain fraction of the population. Either way, when studying a genotype, it is exceedingly rare to not arise through sexual intercourse, and impossible to spread throughout the population without it. As modern-day genetics researchers, Megan and Cueball should definitely know this fact.

Currently in the United States, topics around sex are at least partially considered taboo. This taboo most strictly covers depictions of sex and nudity in media, which are usually the domain of pornography and less mainstream art forms (e.g. nude photography). Megan defending themselves as not being “weirdos” suggests that she in fact does not want to break the taboo. In academic science however, such topics are generally part of regular scientific discussion, including depictions and descriptions that would be considered offensive in other circumstances. For example, Wikimedia Commons contains many depictions of sexual intercourse for scientific and educational purposes. While some researchers, like the ones depicted in the comic, might be offended by such “lewd” contents, most would regard them well as long as they further the research on the topic at hand. Real-world biologists or geneticists would most likely not be offended by these issues, as sexual reproduction is a common or even predominant topic in both fields. Furthermore, the obscenity of the topic (genetic distributions affected by sexual reproduction) is very low in comparison to fields that deal with intercourse directly. This view seems to be shared by the off-screen commenter in the comic.

What is more problematic, and also addressed by the researcher’s comments, is the privacy of the individuals in the population under examination. Namely, using such data, it might be possible to figure out who had intercourse with whom, possibly reducing the timeframe to within less than a year based on the offspring’s age. However, since the analysis depicted likely takes place over many generations within a population, and is done on historical data, it is likely that the vast majority of the people whose genomes were analyzed are no longer alive. This is supported by the description of the population as “ancestral”. Beyond a certain point, even private data pertaining to deceased people is no longer considered sensitive, as it becomes the subject of history. The only problematic part is the ancestral information for living individuals, which is indeed worthy of protection—but not for the reasons given.

The title text is a reference to 2268: Further Research is Needed. This one is based on the fact that most scientific papers contain a section suggesting future research avenues. This is done in the hope that other researchers will pick up where the authors have left off, or to announce the author’s own intentions for follow-up work. However, in this case, Megan and Cueball are both averse to the idea of future research, since as established they don’t think it’s appropriate to do so, which is ironic given the reason for the section.

Genetics and sex have also appeared in 830: Genetic Analysis. Presenting outlandish or plain bad/incorrect research has been a common topic, such as in 3129: Archaeology Research and 3000: Experimental Astrophysics.

If the researcher had access to the time machine from the previous comic, they would not need to rely on techniques such as admixture. Though personally using the time-travel ability to manifest oneself at the time and place of every birth and/or conception event to obtain the data necessary to accumulaate the same (or better) ancestral information would probably mean a series of very intrusive invasions of privacy that might well be considered as the actions of a weirdo.

Transcript

[Cueball and Megan are shown, with Megan using a pointer stick to point at a diagram on a poster. The diagram features tree/root structure with a single node at the top end, branching solid lines leading to more nodes across several levels in most cases, but with at least one node that does not propogate this way and some dotted lines linking down from some branches into other ones. The increasingly branching lower tracks becoming so dense that it almost looks like dark triangles at the bottom of the diagram's last obvious bifurcations. Small and unreadable labels/symbols feature next to most linking lines, and more extensive (but still totally unreadable) information is placed below each of the lowermost 'triangular' terminating clumps.]

Megan: Our admixture analysis showed that these genotypes arose in the ancestral population almost entirely through sexual intercourse.

Megan: Upon realizing this, we of course promptly deleted all our data.

Off-screen voice: What? Why??

Megan: We're not weirdos!

Megan: Jeez, give these people some privacy!

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Discussion

I'm expecting some reference to the revelation of Neandthalic/etc genes in various branches of our own population, along the way, but shall leave the actual writing to others. 81.179.199.253 18:15, 29 May 2026 (UTC) Sexis canon again! Caliban (talk) 18:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

This comic is an interesting contribution to discussion about how science and the public handle privacy issues. For instance a museums finds it okay to display a dead body [1] just because he died a very long time ago. --2001:4091:A241:81DC:350B:874D:E1AA:9FEE 13:46, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

We need more details about Ötzi to better understand how he is related to us. For example, did he play the Steirische Ziehharmonika, and if not, how did he fail to learn it? Was he killed because of Harmonikamusikhass--someone hated accordions and did not want them to perpetuate? His display in a museum would be much more exciting and appropriate with those details. 173.188.194.118 15:18, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Ötzi probably predates the Steirische Ziehharmonika, unless someone used their time machine to fix the temporal ordering requirements. --2A10:D586:3E93:0:907B:6DDD:C33E:4855 07:52, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

see also 2268 Treeplate (talk) 15:19, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

• This strip reminds me of 830: Genetic Analysis, where counselor Megan tells Cueball, "... we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex." --208.59.176.206 19:16, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Think about how uncomfortable it is to think about your grandparents having sex. It's exponentially worse with your great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandparents. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 14:34, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

• I disagree. I never met my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and I don't even know what their names were or what they looked like. So I have no specific image of them with which to be discomforted by the idea of them having sex. It may be somewhat uncomfortable to think about them having sex, but considerably less uncomfortable than thinking about my grandparents having sex. --208.59.176.206 05:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

While I agree that, in general, the public doesn’t respect the privacy of people who died a long time ago, I think it should be pointed out that this is a real ethical discussion in history and in social sciences more generally. Ethnic studies has really broached the subject of what sources should be available to us, the importance of respecting the people/cultures behind those sources, etc. and historians have been taking note. Ari Kelman’s book Misplaced Massacre is a good example. I think saying that at a certain point privacy is just left to history is a bit reductive. Salsmachev (talk) 15:30, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that the diagram as shown could either be one of descendency or ancestry.

• Descendency: from a single common ancestor at the top, it tracks known descendents chronologically downwards until the modern day extended family whose genomes may have been sampled to back-derive the separate paths down which various genetic variations from the original presumed common heritage found their way (presumably mostly added in by partners of the intermediate descendents). Dotted lines may indicate tentative 'non-maritable' genetic links across branches ("uncle Bob was always nearby, ready to help mother out while my father was away"). There's quite a few modern-day descendents. But, realistically, any ancestor far enough back who has extant descendents is likely to have many (i.e. the "X% of the world's population is directly descended from Genghis Kahn”, or whoever, but the same could probably be said of various anonymous others from that time, if only we knew who they were), so long as all their branches haven't all died out.
• Ancestry: Top node is the single present target individual, each layer down is the parents of the layer above, with some (but limited) information about the most immediate layers. The clumped lines at the bottom is where it turns into more generalist assumptions starting to be more based upon official records and even regionality/ethnicity assumptions. (Again, dotted lines indicate possible 'unofficial gene-sharing'.)

...I would lean towards the latter, given that most nodes that have decinite and distinct 'feeder lines' from below have exactly two of them. Everyone^{[citation needed]} has two parents, one way or another. For the other, you'd have to assume a lot of consistent two-child families as the overwhelming norm, in a part of the diagram leading back in a time where Family Planning was (at best) more like making good practical use around the home/farm/factory of as many of the numerous children you had that hadn't already succumbed to one of the copious childhood illnesses/accidents. (Or, if a more priveleged family tree, some rather deliberate sticking to the "an heir, and a spare" philosophy, though even that would have been hit-and-miss and you'd still expect to see intergenerational and intragenerational variations.)

The more Doylist explanation is that it's just a scribbled diagram by Randall, and whichever archetype of figure he might have taken inspiration from, in an actual Ancestry/Descendency study, he just went for the general look. But it doesn't stop me pondering the in-universe/Watsonian facts deep behind the festuted scenario, however unnecesary it might be to try to understand (and then explain) in order to appreciate the comic's more deliberate punchline(s). But I still wished to share my ponderings on the matter. 82.132.238.174 13:37, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
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