User talk:Clive Delmonte

Welcome
Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia, and welcome. Unfortunately, many of your recent edits about nucleic acid structure have not been in alignment with Wikipedia policies, and have had to be mostly removed. Our three main content policies are Neutral point of view, No original research, and Verifiability. I'd also suggest that you familiarize yourself with the Conflict of interest guideline, as your contributions seem to be mainly about your own research area, and the policy on Due and undue weight.

If you need help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have. You can also just type   on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 19:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Re: A Discussion of Key Science Issues between Clive Delmonte and Anthony-22
Hi Antony !

I guess you know the difference between Truth & Verifiability, but I think I don't ! To me it seems that if a phenomenon is verifiable, then it is empirically true. However, I now find myself preoccupied with a different aspect of DNA structure.

I first made my SBS structure public in 1985 (to Watson Fuller). I used the published work of later DNA crystallographers to challenge the Watson-Crick structure deduced largely from a few low resolution smudges (Diagram 51). Later crystallograpic work showed that these smudges had been interpreted to define a supercell. There are many supercells now identified by DNA crystallographers themselves in their own papers, as I guess you know, and most of them are listed in the Protein Data Bank.

I have attempted to list as many as possible in my last paper (2009) "Reflections on the Secondary Structure of DNA ... " From early days I have been abused for my work. Professor Pearl, who I have never met, sent me an e-mail calling me "stupid". A Cambridge crystallographer called me "ignorant", etc., etc. An Indian crystallographer (Gautham) sent a whole catalogue of personal complaints about me and my intellectual incompetence to Current Science. They may have been right, it's hardly for me to say, but they all missed the crucial point: I may be stupid, ignorant, etc., etc., but I may still be right !

Richard Dickerson sent an email to my friend Gordon Rodley, copy to me, after I had explained to Richard how his work supported an SBS model, telling Gordon "TO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ME." Poor Richard, he said, correctly, that if I were right, his whole life's work would be brought to nothing. That is the center of the problem. All the double helix types understand perfectly that their life's work is threatened. I do sympathise with them and I have patiently and gently set out the case in vast detail since I first realised that the dh didn't exist in vivo (in 1981).

However, I have only recently recovered from a stem cell lymphatic cancer which my doctors say will return, so I am now thinking how to spend the next few years most usefully (I do not at all feel sorry for myself as I have had a fair innings with lots of fun in science and I am now nearly 70).

But it does mean that I have realised in the last few days that I really don't need to bash on with paranemic DNA and endure any more abuse or indifference. No-one is much interested, for various reasons, and all the crucial work is already set out in my first book, my later papers, and in an electonic book due out soon. This work is largely unread and unappreciated, but "c'est la vie", as they say. I certainly cannot muster the energy any more to set out the case anew for Wiki.

There are many DNA researchers who will waste their whole lives on a structure which I have failed to persuade them does not exist in vivo, and may well not exist at all.

I am not bitter about all this, but I am going to pursue other interests for the next few years. If you do not hear from me again please do not be offended or hurt. I do appreciate the time and effort you have given to the topic.

With best wishes,

Clive