"Junk" DNA must have a purpose, otherwise selection would have gotten rid of much of it. Why keep it around to serve as source of problems?
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Replying to @JayMan471
@JayMan471@hbdchick Intragenomic competition (surely?).1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Outsideness
@JayMan471@hbdchick ... the organism isn't the exclusive target of natural selection.1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @Outsideness
@Outsideness@hbdchick If it were functionless, it could have been lost with no harm. Indeed, would have been favored (cut down mutations).1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @JayMan471
@JayMan471@hbdchick Selective pressure on non-expressive DNA is clearly too low to pay for intra-genomic editing machines you're expecting.1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Outsideness
@Outsideness@hbdchick Deletions of functionless areas likely to have been favored.1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @JayMan471
@JayMan471@hbdchick 'Likely' meaning what? Junk DNA is the fact, the selective hypothesis the counter-factual, no?2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Outsideness
@Outsideness@hbdchick Ultimately, it does depend on whether the rate junk is lost to deletions exceeds the rate new junk is generated.1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @JayMan471
@JayMan471@hbdchick I'm not understanding. Doesn't the existence of (massive quantities of) junk DNA already answer this question? ...2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
@JayMan471 @hbdchick ... Any model that led us to expect efficient junk-cleansing in the genome would be demonstrably unreliable.
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