John Mason Tyler was born on May 18, 1851 in Amherst, Massachusetts, the son of Professor William Seymour Tyler. He graduated from Amherst College in 1873 and earned an M.A. from Amherst in 1876. He received a Ph.D. from Colgate in 1888. Tyler taught at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. From 1876 to 1879 he studied in Germany at the Universities of Göttingen and Leipzig. Upon his return to Amherst he was appointed to the faculty of Amherst College as Instructor in Biology (1879-1881), Instructor in Zoology and Botany (1881-1882), and Stone Professor of Biology (1882-1917). Tyler died in 1929.

He is the author of many books, including The Coming of Man; Growth and Education; Man in the Light of Evolution; The New Stone Age in Northern Europe; The Physical Basis of Education; The Place of the Church in Evolution; and Whence and the Whither of Man.