I am not a molecular biologist, but from the moment I heard the term, “junk DNA” decades ago, my immediate thought was that this is most likely not “junk,” rather something the scientists don’t really understand. It reminded me of another nonsensical adage, “We only use 10% of our brain;” or the thinking that tonsils and the appendix are useless. I have always had a very high degree of respect for biology and evolution. My default is that if something can’t be explained, it is probably because we really don’t understand it. It is arrogant to dismiss something not understood as “junk” (which, in the example above, was 90% of the brain) instead of just leaving it a mystery to be solved.
That’s precisely what I tell my wife about things she considers “junk.”
Bingo. I thought the exact same thing. Just because you don’t see a pattern or correlation doesn’t mean that it has none.
The massive ENCODE project has been busily putting to rest the idea of “junk DNA” for nearly 20 years now.
I am not a molecular biologist, but from the moment I heard the term, “junk DNA” decades ago, my immediate thought was that this is most likely not “junk,” rather something the scientists don’t really understand. It reminded me of another nonsensical adage, “We only use 10% of our brain;” or the thinking that tonsils and the appendix are useless. I have always had a very high degree of respect for biology and evolution. My default is that if something can’t be explained, it is probably because we really don’t understand it. It is arrogant to dismiss something not understood as “junk” (which, in the example above, was 90% of the brain) instead of just leaving it a mystery to be solved.
That’s precisely what I tell my wife about things she considers “junk.”
Bingo. I thought the exact same thing. Just because you don’t see a pattern or correlation doesn’t mean that it has none.
The massive ENCODE project has been busily putting to rest the idea of “junk DNA” for nearly 20 years now.
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/encode
https://www.encodeproject.org/help/project-overview/
Evolution produces things that are only just good enough and no better. Some terrible kludges. Nature is a half baked engineer.
I thought the idea that “junk” DNA actually isn’t has been around for a while. Thanks for the links, Bill Hensley.