This cuts both ways. Unless some other portion of the genome "takes over" for the deleted portions, the usefulness of the deleted areas are questionable. On the other hand, the fact that they are ultra-conserved and seem to convey no survival advantage is a severe blow to RMNS. In that case, even if another portion of the genome "took over", there would be no reason for the deleted region to be ultra-conserved under the RMNS paradigm.
It certainly does. It demonstrates that circular reasoning allows false assumptions to creep in.
This discovery was no doubt made by a creation scientist, since no mainstream scientist would risk his reputation and grant money by rocking the boat.
> the fact that they are ultra-conserved and seem to convey no survival advantage is a severe blow to RMNS
No, it isn't. It's quite simple: those genes that provide a benefit to the animal tend to be reproduced at a higher-than-normal rate. Those genes that are detrimental to the animal tend to be reproduced at a lower-than-normal rate. And those genes which simply do nothing at all are under no pressure to be deleted. Genes which are "off" will be left in place until such time as random replication errors cause changes, which may well be a very long time indeed.
ANALOGY ALERT: It's like computer programming, but without the programmer... as the program is updated, those sections of the code that are no longer needed might be tagged as "comments" and left in place.... they do nothing but sit there and take up a tiny amount of space. As several thousand generations of iterations occur, quite a lot of such "comments" can be built up; they do nothing, either good nor bad. If at some point the comments are deleted... the program runs just the same as it did when the comments were in place.