Junking the Junk?

Something of an academic storm (read it carefully!) seems to be developing in relation to attempts to junk the claim that the previously regarded 'junk DNA' is, far from junk and is actually essential to life (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/24/scientists-attacked-over-junk-dna-claim?INTCMP=SRCH). The people, from the Encode Project, who advocated the view that junk DNA is actually important (largely in terms of providing information important to our understanding of disease susceptibility), were a much-cited and well-funded team. Their attackers, featuring Dan Grauer of Houston Texas, charge the Encode team with a lack of understanding of Evolutionary Biology and use of unconvincing statistics. Grauer reportedly goes so far as to state this is "not the work of scientists. This is the work of badly trained technicians". I think the basic bone of contention lies between theoretical biology and  technocrats. Weirdly, both groups are likely to increase their scientific standing (at least in the short to medium term) by having an acrimonious debate.