Talk:David Baltimore/Archive 1

Untitled
The section on the van Parijs case has serious problems. The claim that this case probably cost Baltimore the Caltech presidency is totally unsubstantiated and unsourced. The only evidence used to suggest any connection between the van Parijs case and Baltimore's resignation as president is the coincidence that they occurred on similar dates. None of the news articles about Baltimore's resignation mention the van Parijs case (in fact, they are quite flattering to Baltimore), and none of the articles about the van Parijs implicate Baltimore as being guilty of fraud. Jdb41 20:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

What of the line about CalTech students considering him the third failed president in a row? Is this sourced?
 * I removed the statement. See Biographies of living persons. --JWSchmidt 05:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

what is the title or reference of the article in question??


 * If you mean Imanishi-Kari's article see: Altered repertoire of endogenous immunoglobulin gene expression in transgenic mice containing a rearranged mu heavy chain gene. --JWSchmidt 00:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The line of Baltimore being a failed president of Caltech is one that comes by word of mouth from Caltech students themselves and many faculty. It is not something that one would find in an official document, thus you can't really source the sentiment of current students. This sentiment may be officially expressed sometime in the future through surveys though.Ctetc2007 07:45, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The line about "Probably scientific fraud cost Baltimore the CalTech presidency as well" is not sourced at all, and probably has no basis in fact. I am at Caltech, and have never heard anyone seriously suggest that his resignation as president of the school had anything to do with scientific fraud. It is rather normal for University presidents to step down after serving for 5-6 years, and I have never even heard anyone speculate that Baltimore's resignation was related to fraud. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.92.220.218 (talk) 03:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't shoot the messenger
No mention of Baltimore's role in discovering RNA signalled DNA? Or where? Trekphiler 07:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * He was just a bystander. Baltimore is emblematic of an academic type. This type is common, and everybody in academia knows at least a few. It is seldom discussed, because it is difficult to bring up the issue without sounding petty and envious. Anyway, this career begins with a few early bystander successes. Person X did not really contribute all that much, but is on the paper, and crucially, has the gift of the gab, projects willpower, enthusiasm, charisma, and impresses the community with their gift for oral reporting, both in seminars and in informal conversations. Then comes the make or break part of their career: they receive an academic position, usually junior, but still precocious for their age. Now they risk being exposed for being a weak scientist, and their early promise being mainly due to the academic environment of PhD or first-postdoc lab. X may for a while milk that success for all it is worth, write endless reviews, textbooks and so on, and X will also aggressively dominate and bloviate in meetings, bully their name on papers that are entirely the genius of others. Or X may come to rest as a "big fish in a little bowl" - the benign resolution of the syndrome (I am not making any of this up; "big fish in a little tank" is literally how X will refer to him/herself). As their power grows, this strategy of intimidation and intellectual theft becomes self-reinforcing, since their underlings depend entirely on X for a good reference. Now if X is intelligent, he or she will move on to senior admin roles, deanships, institute directorships, and leave the scientific supervision of junior people to a middle layer (the unsung heroes of academia, who will not be getting the honours, prizes, and memberships that X is garnering). But all too often X has also come to believe that they have actual scientific acumen, and bully post-docs into falsifying data. I must stress that the blame in these cases is shared between the overbearing but incompetent X and their incompetent but ambitious underlings (who bizarrely often get away with tenure at a lesser institution, even when their role in the fraud has been exposed).

If you have been in academia for a decade or two (three, four...) you will not only agree with the above account (unless you are an X!), you will have a handful of case studies that you experienced at first hand.

Well-published cases are only the top of the iceberg. They happen when X overplays his/her hand. Again, there is a set script that these cases follow. By now, X has been away from the actual practice of science that he/she does not realise that the experiments are easily reproducible, and X has so much clout with the media that a big deal is made of a "break through" ("paradigm shift" etc). A clever X ensures that the result depends on e.g. an instrument that only exists in their institute. Now the excrement hits the ventilator. For every notorious case there are hundreds that "quietly" get published in PNAS, Cell, Science etc.88.111.239.43 (talk) 17:12, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

van Parijs Case
Baltimore was involved in another major research misconduct scandal.

6 October 2005 CalTech began an inquiry (Harvard Crimson ) that was prompted by a free-lance reporter's queries (NewScientist.com, "MIT professor sacked for fabricating data" ). The reporter had found suspicious data in several of Dr. Luk van Parijs' research papers, including one co-authored by, among others, Baltimore when van Parijs was a postdoctoral trainee of his at CalTech. 27 October 2005 MIT fired van Parijs, Associate Professor of Biology, claiming he, "[...A]dmitted to fabricating and falsifying research data in a paper and several manuscripts and grant applications" (MIT statement ).

28 October 2005 the media storm began: NewScientist.com, Boston Globe , New York Times , The Tech , Harvard Crimson, TheScientist.com , Nature , Science , New Scientist , Chronicle of Higher Education, and Nature Immunology ; but not LA Times and none mentions Baltimore's resignation. Apparently, van Parijs' lab's members observed questionable scientific practices on his part and then reported to MIT authorities. MIT began investigating August 2004. The NewScientist.com and Science reports conflict whether MIT had reimbursed NIH. The news reports also point to suspicious data in two papers co-authored by van Parijs during his Harvard doctoral training.

26 January 2006 Nature published a story - by the same free-lance reporter - that discusses suspicious data in two patent applications filed by Baltimore and van Parijs. It states, "[...W]hen questioned by Nature, Baltimore admitted one of the errors and said he would correct it; he is considering the others..."

Online 14 May 2007 and in print, co-authors retracted falsified or fabricated data from one of van Parijs' papers produced at MIT.

25 November 2007 New Scientist reported that CalTech's investigation had concluded March 2007 with a finding of research misconduct on the part of van Parijs only and a recommendation that four(4) research papers be corrected.

15 December 2007 co-authors retracted falsified or fabricated data from another of van Parijs' papers produced at MIT.

Is this relevant to Baltimore?
I moved the section, above, from the the article because it seems to be mostly about another person, not Baltimore. If we can find third party commentators who indicate that these events are important information about Baltimore then maybe we can craft a smaller page section that reflects what those commentators have said. --JWSchmidt (talk) 23:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The Imanishi-Kari Case
The article, I suppose in an effort at NPOV, states that Kevles' book on the case is "sympathetic" to Imanishi-Kari and Baltimore, but that Judson's book, The Great Betrayal, gives "a different perspective." I am a physician, have published papers in the scientific literature, and am conversant with the science involved in this affair. I have read both books, and was hugely impressed with the degree of research and depth of detail analysis in Kevles' book. I am personally convinced that Imanishi-Kari most probably (and Baltimore certainly) were not guilty of intentional fraud, that Imanishi-Kari was horrifically treated by a non-judicial review system which made it impossible for her to address the case and defend herself for years. I am equally convinced of the mendacity, insincerity, and pure hypocrisy of Margot O'Toole, Imanishi-Kari's original and principal tormentor. By contrast, Judson's book is superficial, incomplete, and completely off the mark on several important issues. Furthermore, sections of it seem like a mini-hagiography of O'Toole, a thoroughly despicable character, in my opinion. I feel that this article, if its author chooses to address the Imanishi-Kari case, could be improved by a more detailed exposition of the case, with emphasis on Imanishi-Kari's ultimate triumph.72.203.165.45 (talk) 19:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should change the Thereza Imanishi-Kari article into a redirect to a new page called something like The Imanishi-Kari scientific misconduct case. --JWSchmidt (talk) 22:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Research Guide
One user has objected to the implementation of the Research Guide section used in the Baltimore article. Note that the user who deleted my template from the Baltimore article User:SEWilco has this message on their user page: "This user's activities on Wikipedia have been restricted by illegal[1], unreasonable[2], and arbitrary[3] ArbCom restrictions [4] and enforcement[5][6]."

In fairness, I have proposed an ongoing discussion of this issue on the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style page. (talk) 03:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Tkbalt edit: irrelevant info?
Anyone want to discuss the recent Tkbalt edit (3 Mar 08)? I think research misconduct in the laboratory of Caltech's president is not irrelevant information. RspnsblMntalk 03:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC) RspnsblMntalk 23:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Baltimore's trainees
Anyone think such a section is worthwhile? Subsections: undergraduate, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Visiting Scientist (Professor's sabbatical)? RspnsblMntalk 16:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Shockingly inappropriate for scientific biography, let alone for WP:BLP
This biography (as of yesterday; I'm trying to fix it now) is a hatchet-job, rife with material that violates both WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. It says little about Baltimore's scientific research but gives way too much WP:WEIGHT to two scientific controversies, both presented at length in a way most unfavorable to Baltimore.

The case of Thereza Imanishi-Kari: This 619-word section is more than twice the length of the affair's treatment in Imanishi-Karzi's own biography -- yet she is the scientist who was accused of fraud. Baltimore's own "sin" was defending a young collaborator who denied fabricating data. The article stresses that both Baltimore and Imanishi-Karzi were at MIT when the errors (Baltimore said) or fraud (the article strongly implies) occurred but never mentions the surely relevant fact that the only disputed work was done in her laboratory and not in his. The opinions of noted polemicist Serge Lang are given equal weight with those of noted historian of science Daniel Kevles. (The fact that Lang is a mathematician rather than a biologist or historian, and that as an AIDS denialist he might have some POV issues with a scientist who works on HIV virus is never mentioned.) Material from Baltimore's own description of the case is not presented.

The case of Luk van Parijs (LvP) has an even more tenuous relation to David Baltimore long distinguished career, but it also gets hashed over in a very unfair way. Unmentioned here, but surely relevant--according to New Scientist, it was Baltimore himself who suggested that Caltech investigate LvP's work in his lab. Furthermore, according to the Boston Globe ( and ) LvP was later suspected of fabricating data in papers he wrote before going to Baltimore's lab as a postdoc, research done as a grad student of Dr. Abul Abbas at Brigham and Women's Hospital. This article's treatment of the LvP affair leaves a strong implication that it was his postdoc with Baltimore that pushed LvP into scientific fraud.

Articles like this are an embarrassment to Wikipedia. I hope others will join me in clearing this one up. betsythedevine (talk) 14:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree in general that this article needs work. It has been on my list to clean up for some time, largely because it has been fitfully targeted by AIDS denialists, but I haven't had the time to look into the specifics of some of the Imanishi-Kari stuff. Certainly these are notable episodes, but I agree that the article's coverage of them is both overlong and inappropriately insinuative. If you feel up to working on these issues, I'm happy to help as I can. MastCell Talk 19:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanation; I was wondering how this happened. I think one problem may be that there is a lot of polemic material out there on the tubes of the internet, much of it old stuff that never got corrected after the "forensic" case again Imanishi-Kari was thoroughly discredited. O'Toole's allegations just didn't hold up when looked at in detail. People have made a lot of how "arrogant" Baltimore was when he questioned the ability of non-experts to assess what is going on in a bunch of lab notebooks, but ultimately it seems he was thoroughly vindicated in that belief, as well as in his belief that errors, not fraud, had caused problems.


 * I wish somebody more knowledgeable than I am about modern bio could add info about Baltimore's actual career. betsythedevine (talk) 23:08, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You may want to look at associated articles, including Daniel Kevles, Serge Lang, Thereza Imanishi-Kari, and Luk van Parijs. This sort of thing has a way of metastasizing. MastCell Talk 04:03, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The AIDS denialist description
Lang may be dead, but that's no reason to place that moniker in front of his description. It's nothing near what he's best known for, and a clear attempt at discrediting his point of view, in contravention of WP:NPOV. I apologize for my incorrect characterization of it as "slander" in the edit summary -- it appears to be true, and thus cannot be slander. That doesn't keep it from being a decidedly biased description, however. Ray (talk) 06:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * David Baltimore's biography has been the target of a lot of POV nastiness in the past. He worked on retroviruses, and somebody stated that the vandals are part of an AIDS-denialist group. In any case, it seemed to me that Lang's hostility to the virus theory of AIDS was relevant to his incredibly active and still influential hostility to Baltimore. But I think you are right, however--characterizing Lang only as an AIDS denialist is inappropriate. betsythedevine (talk) 14:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Lang the AIDS denialist criticized Baltimore not Lang the mathematician. It can say Lang, AIDS denialist and mathematician or reversed but AIDS denialist is why he criticized Baltimore, AIDS denialists like Lang can't argue science so they go after scientists, like Baltimore, Gallo, say they are bad people so their work is bad. It is not good logic but o well. RetroS1mone   talk  17:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * RetroSlmone, calling somebody an AIDS denialist is highly prejudicial. If you want to insert a section discussing the context in which Lang opposed Baltimore's appointment, that would be very helpful. But a straight label like that is not the mark of a neutral point of view. Ray (talk) 04:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The term "AIDS dissident" is preferred to "AIDS denialist" by people who hold such beliefs, so I hope that giving that description to Serge Lang will be un-prejudicial. Lang's vendetta against Baltimore may merit a section in Lang's bio but it certainly doesn't merit any such weight in Baltimore's. betsythedevine (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for my long absence; winter holiday came in between. However, I reiterate, that if RetroS1mone wishes to state that Lang's criticism of Baltimore came in the context of AIDS denialism, that claim will need to be sourced. Otherwise, it is inappropriate to describe an academic by the most prejudicial title imaginable, rather than the standard description. I've removed the AIDS denialist description altogether, pending such sourcing. Ray (talk) 06:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Van Parijs case
"Soon after Baltimore's resignation, and at his request, Caltech began investigating the work Luk van Parijs" (wiki entry)

this comment is in direct contrast to the quote by baltimore published in nature:

"Baltimore told the court he never had any reason to doubt Van Parijs's veracity when he worked in his lab." (doi:10.1038/474552a) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.152.101.44 (talk) 16:59, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

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