1856-1939

American Biologist

Though he is best known for his discovery of the XX and XY sex chromosomes, Edmund Beecher Wilson also deserves credit for helping transform biology into a true scientific discipline. In the late nineteenth century, the field was characterized primarily by passive description of natural phenomena on the one hand, and by fanciful speculation and wild theories on the other. Wilson was a leader in the generation that helped tame such speculation within the rigors of a careful, yet highly active and curious, theoretical framework.

Born on October 19, 1856, Wilson was the second of Isaac and Caroline Clark Wilson's four surviving children. His father became a circuit court judge in Chicago when Wilson was two, and the family moved. However, the boy's childless aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Patten, were so fond of him that Wilson's mother left him with...