CalTech's Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology Had a Few Cogent Points to Make as He Stepped Down from the AAAS Presidency. (November 4, 2008)

David Baltimore is the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. He served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) from February 2007 to February 2008 and now serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Previously he had built one research institute, the Whitehead, headed one specialized research university, Rockefeller, and one small comprehensive research university, Caltech. Prior to that he together with Renato Dulbecco and Howard Temin received the 1975 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material.

Feisty, combative and brilliant, he faced down a Congressional investigation and the opprobrium of his peers and proved to be correct in defending his colleague Thereza Imanishi-Kari against charges of scientific fraud.

This past February Professor Baltimore gave his presidential address to the 2008 annual meeting of the AAAS and a comprehensive essay based on the address has now been published in the October 24, 2008 issue of Science.

Early on he makes what ought to be a guiding point in any endeavour certainly in research: "A good idea is a treasure, no matter what mind conceives it. The stronger world science is, the more ideas will bubble up, and the richer will be the brew of ideas and experiments that each of us can draw upon." And he implies that what is given, induces what one receives.

Professor Baltimore then goes on to enunciate five rules for international science development.

In developing the theme he writes a spirited defence for small, and while his reference is to the United Sates, "Baltimore's rules" deserve universal consideration:

They[the Whitehead, Rockefeller, Caltech] have in common a characteristic that is central to my thinking: They are small and grow at most marginally. They run counter to the trend in academia to measure success by growth and to solve problems by growing away from them. But they have another common characteristic; they are, by anyone's measure, homes for excellence. And they have maintained excellence over decades, in one case for more than a century. Not all institutions in a society need aspire to this level of excellence, but the best ones are the bellwethers of academic life and thus key. The rules I have taken from these experiences are five:

1) In choosing people, demand excellence. Because excellent people are hard to find, this means hiring slowly and deliberately, never letting the desire to fill slots force poor decisions. Another corollary is that in a developing country, with a small base of developed talent, starting many institutions at once could be counterproductive.

2) Concentrate resources. This means favoring one great small enterprise, perhaps at the expense of larger institutions. It is especially relevant today when the cost of doing pioneering research is so large.

3) Create small environments. One might counter my focus on smallness with the reasonable point that today research is increasingly interdisciplinary, giving an advantage to large, comprehensive institutions. However, by creating within large universities smaller, well-resourced centers, it is possible to get the values of both smallness and comprehensiveness. The Whitehead Institute, in its affiliation with MIT, is a good example. Caltech, amazingly, is both small and comprehensive, a notably hard mix to maintain.

4) Build institutions that unify teaching and research. In the United States, we know well that integrating teaching with research benefits both and ensures that there is always a pool of people trained to work at the forefront of their fields. But abroad, this unity is often lacking, imperiling continuity and shortchanging students.

5) Ensure academic freedom. In the United States, this means maintaining tenure, a value that I rate more highly than do many others. Without academic freedom, there is a risk of government dictation of the directions of science. Recently, the United States has seen how a government can attempt to suppress uncomfortable scientific knowledge when it dislikes the policy implications. Remember, in most countries of the world, governments control academic and research institutions. I will come back to this point.

He then turns to fundamental ('blue sky") research:

I believe that it is basic science that makes the leaps that produce the breakthrough concepts. The funding of basic science through investigator-initiated grants is America's secret weapon.

American science, although largely government-funded, is actually a bottom-up entrepreneurial activity. The institutions of science are largely not governmental--even the state universities are no longer mainly funded by the states. The practitioners are employees of the institutions but they get their funds through individual initiative. Tenure is a wonderful guarantee because it enables each scientist to run an individual program, to decide who to involve, who to collaborate with, how big an operation to run.

David Baltimore concluded by telling the AAAS membership: "I have a hope for the future. I hope that when Jim McCarthy takes the reins as the next AAAS president, he will be able to bring a message of optimism. Optimism that our country is prepared to once again act morally, no matter what the provocation; optimism that we will face up to our responsibility to posterity to seriously deal with global warming; optimism that we will reinvigorate our investment in our future, rising to meet the gathering storm; optimism that the tide of religion-based anti-intellectualism that has gripped our nation is being turned."

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A couple of years back the then president of Caltech, David Baltimore was asked by Time magazine, along with a number of leaders in various occupations, what was his approach to multitasking. His reply was terse -- "I don't multitask".