frogprince

how would selection work on non-heritable genetic material? Wouldn't the end result of non-heritable genetic material be one dead mutant, not evolutionary change?.

First, contrary to what Steve says, selection does not work on genetic material at all. It works on organisms and populations of organisms. If a particular gene resulted in "one dead mutant", it would also result in evolutionary change since that gene would be eliminated from the population. Individual organisms don't evolve; populations do. It doesn't have to be as extreme as killing the individual, just making them less successful at breeding.