I did, and it was rather interesting. I have two observations.
(1) The researcher says:
“To a scientist, this kind of self-inflicted genetic damage appears unhealthy, the sort of thing that would cause undesirable mutations and could kill off the organism,” Fresco said. “Cells have evolved a complex DNA repair system to constantly repair such damage. But evolution has not, as we’d expect, put a stop to it. So we theorize it must be happening for some good reason that we have yet to uncover.”
They're theory may be correct, and the inquiry is definitely merited, but it also may very well be that it is in fact unhealthy and undesirable, and that 'evolution hasn't put a stop to it' simply because it wasn't able to.
This brief quote actually points out two problems that I often see in biological research:
(a) the personification of evolution, as if it were, say, an intelligent designer.
Evolution doesn't 'plot things out'; it doesn't 'plan ahead'; and it doesn't 'put a stop' to things. Evolution doesn't do anything; evolution is what happens. There's an important conceptual distinction there.
(b) closely related, the “atomistic” approach to evolution (especially prevalent amongst sociobiologists), theorizing as if specific biological traits can evolve in and of themselves, without regard to structural constraints on design or to the possibility that given structural changes may not appear a possible outcome of the phylogenetic history.
In short, there are any number of plausible explanations why evolution may not have halted this phenomenon, even if it's damaging and of no benefit whatsoever. The researchers presumption that it must be beneficial or else "we'd expect" that evolution would've corrected it is an expression of cognitive bias. They might very well be correct when all's said and done, but there's no guarantee that they're correct, and evolutionary science certainly does not predict that they'll be correct (i.e., that if it's there, we'd 'expect' it to be beneficial).
(2) And my second broad observation is that: On the other hand, it may very well have a positive role in evolution. If so, then how can an added 'vector' of evolvement possibly be a problem for evolution? Quite to the contrary, if that were true - if in fact this does play a role in mutation and evolution - then it seems to me this would definitely be far more of a challenge to, say, ID advocates who reject the notion of beneficial spontaneous mutations.
So, anyway, those are my initial thoughts on all this.
Their theory, not "They're" theory..
I concur with your statements concerning their overreach in stating that if it were bad, evolution would have eliminated it.
I've seen plenty of evolution apologists state eccentially the same thing, "It came about because it had a positive effect." or "It has a positive effect or it wouldn't exist."
This has always struck me as you would say, personifying evolution. A life form might mutate and evolve many negative traits, that simply aren't bad enough to make it go extinct (e.g. Helen Thomas). But evolutionary purists insist that evolution makes no mistakes. I simply disagree with the premise.