Several of you e-mailed me to query about my last post regarding the Baltimore Case, wondering what it was all about. I'll summarize it below. But first let me take a moment to thank Randy Cassingham for helping the Skeptic Mag internet Hotline list grow well into the thousands and for informing me today that we are now in 60 countries with this list. Randy is the regular "Dumbth" columnist for Skeptic magazine, presents our "Dumbth" awards at our annual conference at Caltech, and is the author of the THIS IS TRUE book series, including DEPUTY KILLS MAN WITH HAMMER, GLOW IN THE DARK PLANTS COULD HELP FARMERS, and his latest is PIT BULLS LOVE YOU, REALLY. They are compiled from his syndicated newspaper column "This is True." If you want to reach him send an e-mail to: arcie@thisistrue.com or see http://www.thisistrue.com/ The books are available for $10.95 in paperback through the Skeptics Society (send check or Visa/mastercard number/expiration date to P.O. Box 338, Altadena, Ca 91001 or by e-mail). Thanks for your help Randy.

THE BALTIMORE CASE: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character (W.W. Norton, 1998), by Caltech historian of science Dan Kevles, is the story of David Baltimore, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1975 at the age of 37 (for his work on retroviruses), followed by the presidency of Rockefeller University and numerous other accolades that go with being a successful scientist in the world of Big Science. But in 1986, when at MIT, he collaborated on a paper with Thereza Imanishi-Kari and several other co- authors, that was published in the prestigious journal CELL. There was nothing particularly earth-shattering about the paper's conclusions, but it became the focus of controversy when Margot O'Toole, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, complained about Imanishi-Kari's data, implying that it was faked. This eventually led to an formal Congressional investigation for which O'Toole was portrayed as young honest scientist standing up for truth and fairness in a world of Big Science dominated by huge egos competing for huge dollars and, the implication being, willing to do anything for those dollars and rewards, including data fabrication. She won several awards, including the Humanist of the Year Award from the Ethical Society of Boston, and the Ethics Award of the American Institute of Chemists. By most early accounts it looked like she had stood up against the mighty David Baltimore (who was not himself accused of faking data but, as senior scientist on the paper, was held accountable nonetheless) and won.

But as the affair played itself out in the early 1990s (these things take years) it appeared that instead of Big Science taking a fall from grace (eagerly embraced by those critical of science), it appeared more and more that Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari were the victims of bureaucratic witch- hunters. Congress gave an ethics committee the power and the duty to root out and destroy scientific fraud and, like all good witch-hunters, they found what they were looking for in the Baltimore case.

Kevles chronicles in intricate detail all the personalities and events over the course of a decade, and follows Baltimore's rise to power, fall from grace, and phoenix-like comeback where he was acquitted and is now the President of Caltech. He shows how Imanishi-Kari had not had a fair trial, she had been convicted in the court of public opinion and nowhere else, and those who condemned Baltimore for defending Imanishi-Kari had overlooked important aspects of the case in their witch-hunting zeal and lack of understanding of how science works. Imanishi-Kari was officially exonerated on all counts in June of 1996.

I cannot recommend enough that everyone pick up a copy of this book and read it cover to cover. It is a gripping tale that shows how science really works and how the misunderstanding of science leads to disasterous cases like this.