[Wilhelm Tell]

I am not an expert in this, but I was always disturbed by the term “junk DNA.” We are only just beginning to understand DNA. It seems presumptous to call a sequence “junk” just because you don’t see its function. To determine that something is useless you first have to know that which is useful. Are the spaces between these words something useful or are they useless? Would someone who was never exposed to reading and writing understand the usefulness of empty spaces between words? Or would the spaces be seen as useless “junk?”

[yankeedame]

It seems presumptous to call a sequence “junk” just because you don’t see its function. To determine that something is useless you first have to know that which is useful. Are the spaces between these words something useful or are they useless? Would someone who was never exposed to reading and writing understand the usefulness of empty spaces between words? Or would the spaces be seen as useless “junk?”

Hear! Hear!

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

It seems presumptous to call a sequence “junk” just because you don’t see its function.

Not if you are a Darwinian. Randomness implies "chaos and puposelessness" i.e. "junk". ID implies "direction and purpose".

Randomness is a subset of Darwinian thinking. That could predespose a Darwinist not to question the metaphor "junk" but an ID'er would more likely than not assume the "junk" was in fact somehow useful stuff. And it was up to science to discover its purpose.

[VOA]

It seems presumptous to call a sequence “junk” just because you
don’t see its function.

A similar situation existed in natural product chemistry.
The term "secondary products" was applied to many compounds extracted
from plants that didn't seem to fit into any of the "primary" compounds
that were involved in the main metabolic pathways.
The chemists didn't presume the secondary compounds were junk...
they were just classified as something usually not critically
important to the plant, but not yet assigned a role.
Over the years we've found they play roles in plant defense,
allelopathy, and other functions unsuspected previously.