Abstract
In 1925, Edmund Wilson published the now classic third edition of his book The Cell in Development and Heredity, in which he laid out most of the important questions about developmental biology that we are still attempting to answer. In 1986, Eric Davidson published the third edition of his book Gene Activity in Early Development, in which the progress toward answering Wilson’s questions is described. Wilson (1896) is quoted: “If chromatin be the idioplasm … in which inheres the sum total of hereditary forces, and if it be equally distributed at every cell division, how can its mode of action so vary in different cells as to cause diversity of structure, i.e. differentiation?” How indeed. It would be fascinating to hear Wilson’s responses after informing him of enhancers and RNA splicing. Davidson is clearly an admirer of Wilson, and like Wilson has a broad perspective on the field which brings to the new edition the strengths of a profound knowledge of classical developmental biology together with an appreciation of the power of the new molecular methods.
