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JWeinCom on 05 July 2017
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Scoobes said:
JWeinCom said:

About 98.8% of our DNA is non-coding DNA.  We don't know precisely what all of this is used for.  A large chunk of it is, as far as we know useless.  But, at any rate, in doesn't seem to have a direct impact on differentiating function or appearance in humans. It's not part of the human genome.

If we share all of that noncoding DNA with another animal, but not much of the coding DNA, the result would be a wildly different creature.  So, it's not surprising that a 1% change in DNA could lead to something entirely different.

That's beginning to seem unlikely as 80% of the genome has been identified as being involved in at least one biochemical reaction within at least one human cell-type. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3439153/

Calling it non-coding is a bit misleading (although it's still refered to as non-coding DNA) as it simply means it isn't a protein coding gene. A lot of it has more regulatory roles such as getting transcribed into regulatory RNA. 

Just going by the name they give it.  I know that recently they've been discovering a lot of it has some use, but that's still new research.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the human genome only refers to the protien coding portion of DNA.