I've decided that wrt "junk DNA", we're basically arguing over Sturgeon's Law: "ninety percent of everything is crap": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law [Sturgeon's revelation, commonly referred to as Sturgeon's law, is an adage commonly cited as "ninety percent of everything is crap." It is derived from quotations by Theodore Sturgeon, an American science fiction author: while Sturgeon coined another adage that he termed "Sturgeon's law", it is his "revelation" that is usually referred to by that term. The phrase was derived from Sturgeon's observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard to other art.] --- The problem, of course, is determining _which_ 90% is crap. That's the problem posed by John Wanamaker (of Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia): "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wanamaker [Popular saying illustrating how difficult it was to reach potential customers using traditional advertising is attributed to John Wanamaker: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."] --- Wanamaker's problem was solved by Potter Stewart's rule: "I know it when I see it": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter_Stewart [To the general public, Stewart may be best known for a quotation, or a fragment thereof, from his opinion in the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Stewart wrote in his short concurrence that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."] ----