A change can be adaptively neutral but a change is not evolution. Evolution is the selection of changes. Without the selection aspect a neutral change is just that, a neutral change.
Selection acts on phenotype…..
Dawkins defines a “gene” rather oddly. He uses the word to mean the entire set of genes (in the normal usage of the word) that, acting together, produce a trait that can be selected. Thus, Dawkins has no trouble with a statement like “The gene for running fast in a cheetah…”.
I really wish that he had come up with a better word, using the word “gene” in this manner creates confusion.
I come from a developmental perspective, and see changes defined by physical and developmental constraints, long before they become available for Darwinian selection.
You make a very good point here, but the only change that is not available for selection is a neutral change. “changes defined by physical and developmental constraints” are subject to selection, that is, the physical and development constraints select (allow) only changes that are not harmful (lethal) to the organism. I readily agree that a series of neutral changes may interact and then be subject to selection.
Gould makes a good case for the species as the Darwinian individual
I have read a lot of Gould, but I don’t recall this particular argument. I would be very interested in reading it if you could provide a reference.
Of course neutral change is evolution. Why wouldn't it be? I see that later in the post you allow that a neutral change might later be selected upon. I think that you're still in "survival of the fittest" mode. You may want to view evolution more as a diffusion of possibilities. Selection ensures that evolution gets carried along certain channels, but it is not what determines evolution.
Dawkins defines a “gene” rather oddly.
As a selectable and replicating unit. But you see, a colony of cells falls under this criteria. So does a codon. Dawkins, in his usual slippery way has widened the umbrella definition of "gene" to include almost anything.
...the physical and development constraints select (allow) only changes that are not harmful (lethal) to the organism.
Precisely. And, you see, at that level, selection is not performed on replicating units. So, now you've stepped outside of Dawkins' definition.
I have read a lot of Gould, but I don’t recall this particular argument. I would be very interested in reading it if you could provide a reference.
You bet!
Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth A. Lloyd Individuality and adaptation across levels of selection: How shall we name and generalize the unit of Darwinism? PNAS 96: 11904-11909.