“When a genotype, favored by selection, carries along as hitchhikers a few newly arisen and strictly neutral alleles, it has no influence on evolution.  This may be called evolutionary “noise,” but it is not evolution” (Mayr 199).  How could Mayr possibly know what is or isn’t evolution when it comes to the change in allele frequencies within a given population?  How does he know whether or not in the past, or even in the future, the alleles created great evolutionary change in its carrier?  There is most likely a reason why the particular alleles were coupled with the favored genotype.  One of the major aspects of evolution on the micro-evolutionary level is the change of an individual’s/population’s genotype through the inclusion or exclusion of individual alleles on distinct chromosomes.  Therefore, why wouldn’t “neutral” alleles be considered part of evolution, when they are, in Mayr’s example, a possibly significant part of a favorable genotype? 

Andrea Zambetti