The term junk DNA triggers a lot of confused discussion (on HN and everywhere else), and I suspect a part of that is our getting defensive about the idea of our DNA containing "junk". That term is just more loaded than saying something more benign like "non-functional".
But another part is the term is poorly defined, this article seems to use junk DNA to mean the until-recently unsequenced portions of our genome (and I think that's an unconventional usage), some comments here take it to mean non-protein coding, and another common use is for the term to mean non-functional.
If it helps, a defensible recent accounting is probably something like 1% of our genome being protein coding, perhaps 10% being functional in some way but not protein coding (e.g. regulatory, or transcribed to RNA that is functional etc), and the remaining 90% being without known function and likely non-functional.
After further years and much great painstaking work we'll perhaps learn that to a bit more is functional, though it may end up being say 11% vs 89% non-functional. And that's ok! I wouldn't worry progress being stunted by assumptions of too much of the genome being non-functional, rather the opposite, continuing to believe there is function where there is little evidence to warrant it.
disclaimer: not a geneticist, but sometimes write tools they might use.
But another part is the term is poorly defined, this article seems to use junk DNA to mean the until-recently unsequenced portions of our genome (and I think that's an unconventional usage), some comments here take it to mean non-protein coding, and another common use is for the term to mean non-functional.
If it helps, a defensible recent accounting is probably something like 1% of our genome being protein coding, perhaps 10% being functional in some way but not protein coding (e.g. regulatory, or transcribed to RNA that is functional etc), and the remaining 90% being without known function and likely non-functional.
After further years and much great painstaking work we'll perhaps learn that to a bit more is functional, though it may end up being say 11% vs 89% non-functional. And that's ok! I wouldn't worry progress being stunted by assumptions of too much of the genome being non-functional, rather the opposite, continuing to believe there is function where there is little evidence to warrant it.
disclaimer: not a geneticist, but sometimes write tools they might use.