Sewall Green Wright FRS Honorary FRSE was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and for his work on path analysis.
27 Facts About Sewall Wright
2.
Sewall Wright discovered the inbreeding coefficient and methods of computing it in pedigree animals.
3.
Sewall Wright extended this work to populations, computing the amount of inbreeding between members of populations as a result of random genetic drift, and along with Fisher he pioneered methods for computing the distribution of gene frequencies among populations as a result of the interaction of natural selection, mutation, migration and genetic drift.
4.
Sewall Wright was born in Melrose, Massachusetts to Philip Green Wright and Elizabeth Quincy Sewall Wright.
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Sewall Wright's parents were first cousins, an interesting fact in light of Wright's later research on inbreeding.
6.
From an early age Sewall Wright had a love and talent for mathematics and biology.
7.
Sewall Wright then enrolled in Lombard College where his father taught, to study mathematics.
8.
Sewall Wright was influenced greatly by Professor Wilhelmine Key, one of the first women to receive a Ph.
9.
Sewall Wright worked for the US Department of Agriculture until 1925, when he joined the Department of Zoology at the University of Chicago.
10.
Sewall Wright received many honors in his long career, including the National Medal of Science, the Balzan Prize, and the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society.
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Sewall Wright was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.
12.
Sewall Wright died in Madison, Wisconsin on March 3,1988.
13.
Sewall Wright was the chief developer of the mathematical theory of genetic drift, which is sometimes known as the Sewall Wright effect, cumulative stochastic changes in gene frequencies that arise from random births, deaths, and Mendelian segregations in reproduction.
14.
Sewall Wright was convinced that the interaction of genetic drift and the other evolutionary forces was important in the process of adaptation.
15.
Sewall Wright described the relationship between genotype or phenotype and fitness as fitness surfaces or evolutionary landscapes.
16.
Sewall Wright did not accept Fisher's genetic theory of dominance, but instead considered it to arise from biochemical considerations.
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Sewall Wright was a hugely influential reviewer of manuscripts, as one of the most frequent reviewers for Genetics.
18.
Sewall Wright strongly influenced Jay Lush, who was the most influential figure in introducing quantitative genetics into animal and plant breeding.
19.
From 1915 to 1925 Sewall Wright was employed by the Animal Husbandry Division of the US Bureau of Animal Husbandry.
20.
Sewall Wright performed experiments with 80,000 guinea pigs in the study of physiological genetics.
21.
Sewall Wright did major work on the genetics of guinea pigs, and many of his students became influential in the development of mammalian genetics.
22.
Sewall Wright appreciated as early as 1917 that genes acted by controlling enzymes.
23.
The creation of the statistical coefficient of determination has been attributed to Sewall Wright and was first published in 1921.
24.
Sewall Wright was one of the few geneticists of his time to venture into philosophy.
25.
Sewall Wright found a union of concept in Charles Hartshorne, who became a lifelong friend and philosophical collaborator.
26.
Sewall Wright believed that the birth of the consciousness was not due to a mysterious property of increasing complexity, but rather an inherent property, therefore implying these properties were in the most elementary particles.
27.
Sewall Wright had a major effect on the development of mammalian genetics and biochemical genetics.