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by: Daniel J. Kevles  List Price: $29.95 Price: $8.21 You Save: $21.74 (73%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Edition: 1st Format: Bargain Price Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 509 Publication Date: August 31, 1998 Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: In a perfect world, science wouldn't be done by human beings, since despite our best efforts, we aren't truly objective about anything. When personality and emotion inevitably get mixed up with science, sparks can fly. The most notorious such conflagration in recent times was The Baltimore Case, a decade-long dispute between supposedly objective scientists that resulted in excruciating trials, sensational headlines, and damaged careers and lives. Historian Daniel Kevles tells the story of the accusations of fraud leveled by Margot O'Toole toward her colleagues, Thereza Imanishi-Kari and Nobel Prize-winner David Baltimore. Kevles first explains the controversial experimental results and the paper published outlining them. O'Toole was unable to reproduce the results of Imanishi-Kari and accused her of falsifying data, also implicating the high-profile Baltimore, coauthor of the original paper. In the following years, all participants in the investigation were subjected to dehumanizing, humiliating scrutiny--including a congressional inquiry not unlike a mini-witch-hunt--and nasty comments gleefully reported by a media eager for a big scientific scandal. Kevles comes down on the side of the self-admittedly sloppy Imanishi-Kari (who was officially exonerated in 1996) and Baltimore, painting O'Toole as a well-motivated but overenthusiastic watchdog manipulated by embarrassingly eager investigators. This book is a valuable lesson in how uneasily humanity and science share the laboratory. Even our best and brightest can be brought low by jealousy, carelessness, and deception. --Therese Littleton Product Description: The most significant clash of science and principle in our time-a dramatic witch hunt played out in the scientific arena. David Baltimore won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1975, at the age of thirty-seven. A leading researcher and a respected public figure, Baltimore rose steadily through the ranks of the scientific community; in 1990, he was named president of the world-renowned Rockefeller University. Less than a year and a half later, Baltimore was forced to resign amid public allegations of fraud. Daniel Kevles's penetrating investigation of what became known as the Baltimore case reveals a scientific inquisition in which Baltimore and Thereza Imanishi-Kari, former colleagues at MIT, were unjustly accused and vilified in the name of scientific integrity and the public trust. While never accused of wrongdoing himself, Baltimore had staunchly defended the work and integrity of Imanishi-Kari when her findings came under attack from postdoctoral fellow Margot O'Toole. Backed by fervent fraud-seekers at the National Institutes of Health, a congressman eager to unearth scientific misconduct, and a media gone out of control, O'Toole's whistle-blowing played perfectly to a public that did not fully understand the methods of science. Kevles's eloquent and absorbing work vindicates Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari after their decade-long battle. But Kevles also raises critical questions about the way science works and about the complex discord between the public's right to accountability and the scientist's need for autonomy in the laboratory. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Paradise lostThere used to be a time when those occupying certain hallowed positions could do no wrong, and this included academia and business. However, recent events in the business world have confirmed that the top of the pyramid can and does crumble under the weight of wrong doings. An example is the ENRON case. Another, the Huttenback case (UC Santa Barbabra). I am an admirer of scientists who spend days without sleep in the lab trying to get some elusive result or photo, and when they do, or think they ... Read More Rating:  - A GOOD SCIENCE WHODUNITFor me The Baltimore Case was edifying and a pleasure to read. I recommend it highly to anyone like myself who followed desultorily the media's presentation of the proceedings before the Congressional Subcommittee as putting "Science on Trial," but without any grasp of the underlying science. And I agree with the previous reviewers' conclusion that the book is too long although I attribute its length to the author's commitment to thoroughness. I finished The Baltimore Case feeling I'd ... Read More Rating:  - Will the politicans vanquish the scientists?As an engineer by training and profession, this book really makes my blood boil. It's basically the true story of some scientists at MIT who publish a paper on immunology. A student of one of the professors challenges that some of the data in the paper was faked, and an epic of Phyrric proportions ensues. In the 10 years that this book covers, scientific careers are ruined, researchers are vilified in the media and in the court of public opinion, and (most troubling of all to me) our elected ... Read More Rating:  - A clear case of sides...If ever there was a clear case of people choosing sides based on what they believe a priori, this is it. While some authors (Judy Sarasohm for example) followed this case from both sides, Kevles obviously entered the discussion with a judgement to be excused. The case of Imanishi-Kari v. O' Toole is one that should have be decided in science, by scientists. But the intervention and face-saving by David Baltimore caused this case to linger half a decade beyond it's merit. This book wends its ... Read More Rating: - Science and the Politics of ScienceKevles has written a masterful account of the Baltimore Case (Imanishi-Kari Case might be better). I can only second the glowing reviews already on this page. A few things that might interest the general reader: at the time of this book's publication, Baltimore-bashing was practically a national sport among scientists. Kevles set out to write a balanced account, and he has done so-- it is a good job all around, as Yale recognized when it gave him an endowed chair recently (Caltech's loss, alas!). Information ... Read More 
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