Volume 45, Number 19 · December 3, 1998
Scientists Behaving Badly
By David L. Hull
The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character
by Daniel J. Kevles
Norton, 509 pp., $29.95
For the past dozen years or so, any-one even vaguely interested in sci-ence has followed the Baltimore case with all the fascination of witnessing a slow-motion pileup of cars on a foggy freeway. Headlines have alternated between declaring that the Nobel laureate David Baltimore and his co-worker Thereza Imanishi-Kari were either guilty of scientific fraud or cleared of all charges. Federal oversight committees also alternated between finding Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari innocent and guilty. Congressional hearings claimed to expose a rot that was affecting science at its very roots. Baltimore's colleagues joined in defending or attacking him. Such controversies in science puzzle the general public. Why are these scientists behaving so badly? Scientists are supposed to be dispassionate seekers after truth. Why all these charges and countercharges?
Review, 7494 words
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