What do you mean by 'junk'? Presumably not sections that code for proteins. What about sections that are important for folding the chromosomes properly? What about sections that are important for proper distribution of chromosomes during meiosis or mitosis? What about sections that are used for controlling gene expression? What about sections that code for RNA rather than proteins? What about sections that are only useful for adaptation of the species, for example replicated genes that over time might mutate into new functionality? On 06-Mar-15 15:19, Warren D Smith wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/magazine/is-most-of-our-dna-garbage.html?_...
the NY Times article is enjoyable but fails to mention that closely related species can differ in DNA by large factors. Which is very convincing evidence a lot of the larger one's DNA, must be junk.
I'm not saying everything currently thought to be junk necessarily is -- the NYT article mentions the highly interesting "hotair" counterexample -- but there can be no doubt that well over 50% of some organisms' DNA is junk.
One researcher quoted in the NYT piece says the old estimate 99% of the human genome is junk, is in his view now really 92%.
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