Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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Baltimore-105 BALTIMORE: Oh, don’t worry about them, they’re crazy. It’s a religious cult. [Pause] But no reputable scientists would want to change genetic inheritance. And we’ve said we’re even happy to accept a congressional ban on it, if Congress feels it has to do that. Because what it does is enable us to do other things—other kinds of genetic manipulations that don’t involve the germ line, and then the public can feel comforted, if they can, that we’re not going to start breeding genetic monsters that breed true in any way. LIPPINCOTT: I mentioned to you before that when you were interviewed by Charlie Rose in 2002, he asked you what subject you were most curious about, and you said, “Consciousness”— the mind-body problem—which there hasn’t been a lot of work done at Caltech on. BALTIMORE: Oh, well, Christof Koch [Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology and professor of computation and neural systems]— LIPPINCOTT: Except for Koch, yes. But that’s pretty much it, isn’t it BALTIMORE: No, actually David Anderson [Benzer Professor of Biology] has worked with him some and is trying to define how you would get some sort of a readout in rodents and mice so that you could actually do experiments. And I think everybody in neuroscience is aware of the problem and would love to contribute to it, if they found themselves able. And someday, somebody’s going to be able. And it’s going to come out of the blue, in all likelihood. When you say, “In 1945, the end of World War II, what were the great outstanding problems in biology”—the great outstanding problems were how genes work and how development occurs. Those are the two big issues in biology. Watson and Crick set us on the path to understanding the first, and various people—Jacob and Monod, and a few others—set us on the path to understanding development, which we’re still on. That one’s harder, because it’s much more complex—the genetic problem is DNA. And the third problem you would have identified at that time would have been consciousness. And consciousness remains as the outstanding problem on which we have no demonstrable progress, because it involves understanding the highest levels of brain function and we’re still working on the lower levels. LIPPINCOTT: It’s how to get something abstract out of something physical.
Baltimore-106 BALTIMORE: Well, not just abstract; it’s compelling to the individual. It’s your inner life, as an individual, and you can actually demonstrate that it has tremendous power of decision making and representation. But what is it LIPPINCOTT: What is it [Laughter] Well, it bleeds over into philosophy. You could have what they call a zombie, someone who you wouldn’t be able to tell was a real person or not. But a zombie has no self awareness. That’s the most significant— BALTIMORE: Yes, the zombie state—things that happen without self awareness. How you drive when you’re talking on a cell phone. [Laughter] LIPPINCOTT: Well, thanks very much. It’s been a terrific interview. Do you have anything you’d like to add about Caltech You’re still happy here; you intend to stay here for a while BALTIMORE: I’m still happy here; I intend to stay here for a while. LIPPINCOTT: Glad to hear it. [Recording ends]
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DAVID BALTIMORE (b. 1938) INTERVIEW
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CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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Baltimore-iii 51-55 1975 Nobel Priz
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Baltimore-2 BALTIMORE: The family w
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Baltimore-4 LIPPINCOTT: Oh! That wa
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Baltimore-6 BALTIMORE: Suburban, si
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Baltimore-8 I remember a big thing
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Baltimore-10 college at that point;
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Baltimore-12 BALTIMORE: Yes. That e
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Baltimore-14 BALTIMORE: No, I don
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Baltimore-16 BALTIMORE: I did not w
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Baltimore-18 BALTIMORE: Yes, that
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Baltimore-20 LIPPINCOTT: How big a
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Baltimore-22 BALTIMORE: No, this wa
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Baltimore-24 BALTIMORE: That’s ri
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Baltimore-26 BALTIMORE: I spent all
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Baltimore-28 BALTIMORE: No, I think
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Baltimore-30 BALTIMORE: Polio and i
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Baltimore-32 LIPPINCOTT: So your Ph
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Baltimore-34 BALTIMORE: No, I’m n
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Baltimore-36 BALTIMORE: Oh, yes, I
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Baltimore-38 BALTIMORE: It was year
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Baltimore-40 LIPPINCOTT: No, it was
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Baltimore-42 DAVID BALTIMORE SESSIO
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Baltimore-44 BALTIMORE: The Cookery
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Baltimore-46 appears in Howard’s
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Baltimore-48 BALTIMORE: Yes, it’s
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Baltimore-50 The experiment I descr
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Baltimore-52 room and they didn’t
Page 59 and 60: Baltimore-54 LIPPINCOTT: OK. Renato
Page 61 and 62: Baltimore-56 all the pictures that
Page 63 and 64: Baltimore-58 and the profits from t
Page 65 and 66: Baltimore-60 contemporary. So that
Page 67 and 68: Baltimore-62 BALTIMORE: And that’
Page 69 and 70: Baltimore-64 BALTIMORE: No, it was
Page 71 and 72: Baltimore-66 understand that. Becau
Page 73 and 74: Baltimore-68 BALTIMORE: I still had
Page 75 and 76: Baltimore-70 LIPPINCOTT: Were they
Page 77 and 78: Baltimore-72 BALTIMORE: This was—
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Page 81 and 82: Baltimore-76 a biology school, in s
Page 83 and 84: Baltimore-78 LIPPINCOTT: OK. So on
Page 85 and 86: Baltimore-80 Judy’s book calls it
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Page 91 and 92: Baltimore-86 BALTIMORE: Well, he wa
Page 93 and 94: Baltimore-88 BALTIMORE: We intervie
Page 95 and 96: Baltimore-90 about this, but when I
Page 97 and 98: Baltimore-92 to announce it.” Gor
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Page 101 and 102: Baltimore-96 BALTIMORE: Yes. LIPPIN
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Page 105 and 106: Baltimore-100 LIPPINCOTT: OK. In th
Page 107 and 108: Baltimore-102 BALTIMORE: I had no i
Page 109: Baltimore-104 BALTIMORE: So I was g
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Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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