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Prof. David Furbish and PhD student Kelsea Best follow up on Bernard K. Forscher’s 1963 essay, Chaos in the Brickyard

Posted by on Tuesday, January 5, 2021 in faculty, Graduate Students.

The authors of The Brickyard in 2020 (David Furbish, Douglas Jerolmack and Rachel Glade) offer an updated view of the state of affairs in the brickyard described in B. K. Forscher’s popular 1963 allegorical letter to Science, “Chaos in the Brickyard.”  It calls for a need to realign the research endeavor, institutions and incentives with changing values. You can view their essay here or by logging into the Vanderbilt University Institutional Repository.

In 2020, a young brickmaker (Kelsea Best) provides an update to B. K. Forscher’s 1963 vision of the state of the scientific endeavor as a brickyard. As the brickyard becomes ever more chaotic, this essay calls on young brickmakers to begin to clear the clutter, focusing on the construction of edifices over piles of bricks. Her essay can be found here.