Now T Ryan Gregory, at Genomicron,¹ is saying what I wanted to say (but that I mangled to the point of incoherence). “Junk DNA” — in spite of lazy journalists’ claims — was not ignored or “dismissed” (the journalists’ favourite word), but was studied with an open mind:

The important message being offered is that there was plenty of research into possible functions or lack thereof in noncoding sequences of all types, and that whichever way authors concluded was based on the evidence available at the time, not ideology.

As well as the whole coherence thing, Genomicron is providing definitive proof with quotes from the literature. Read all about it:
Quotes of interest — 1980s edition (part one).
Quotes of interest — long neglected, some noncoding DNA is actually functional.
Quotes of interest — Nobel Prize special edition.
Quotes of interest — 1980s edition (part two).
and especially
Quotes of interest — pseudogene.

1. And from my old alma mater, though I think I had already left before he started there