[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.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Interesting about the “secondary products” in plants. The chemists avoided the arrogant belief, “I don’t understand what it does, therefore it can not be important.”