Three Steps in Wilks Work: From Theory to Resources to Practice

Some researchers are brilliant, able to couch their work in a theory, tracing a line through a long tradition of thinkers, culminating with the advances that they themselves make to body of knowledge that we call science. Some others are head-down, hard workers, butting up against problems and wearing them down over time, hacking out a path through the unknown, a path that others may soon tread over. A very few rare scientists possess both qualities, an enormous capacity for work propelling an unflagging forward movement, and a wide scientific and philosophic culture that they can use to situate what they are doing and to explain why they are doing it. Yorick Wilks is such a scientist whose body of work demonstrates both aspects of hard working obstinacy and cultured brilliance