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PREFACE
I am very happy that Carton has asked me to
write a brief Preface to his narrative, especially because of
all the nice things that he has said about me and my close colleagues.
Reciprocally, it was a wonderful experience sharing these discoveries
with such a fine scientist and human being.
Carton has really caught the atmosphere of
the whole saga, as well as describing the chain of events in much
more detail than I remembered them. Indeed I learned about a few
of the twists in the story for the first time when I read his
account. Hopefully his description of the human side of the events
will interest the reader. It comes over very vividly to me as
one of those involved. Carton has also included some imaginative
thoughts about the science itself, especially about the evolution
of bacterial chromosomes. This is a subject that will run and
run. It is becoming more topical now that bacterial genomes are
being completely sequenced. The first to be completed was
Haemophilus influenzae, a human pathogen
with a chromosome less than a quarter of the size of the Streptomyces
one. The DNA sequences showed that the DNA really is circular,
and has an oriC, with potential termination sequences
diametrically opposite it. But there are lots more bacteria to
study. Maybe a 'missing link', with a linear chromosome lacking
oriC, will turn up some day!
A final word on helping Matthias Redenbach
and the Kaiserslautem group avoid publishing an incorrect conclusion
about the S. lividans chromosome. Competition, unless formalised
in the rules of a game or perhaps in the code of practice of a
well-regulated business environment, can be an extremely destructive
human attribute. In science, friendly rivalry is fine, but unbridled
competition is suspect. No scientist would dissent from the view
that absolute scientific honesty in the face of one's own results
is a pre-requisite for progress - and outright dishonesty is indeed
vanishingly rare, despite the love of the fringe scientific press
for any whiff of it. But isn't it also ethically unsound to be
aware of errors in material that is destined for publication by
others and not to point those errors out? This is the act of a
good scientific citizen, not a saint. And, as Carton's story again
brings out, the friendships and exchanges that follow from good
scientific citizenship can far outweigh the satisfaction of any
temporary advantage that might stem from so-called priority of
publication. In any event, the most important thing in scientific
research is to enjoy it. So, to follow Carton's example with a
quotation, this time from Isaac Newton: "I do not know what 1
may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only
like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now
and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
David Hopwood
May, 1997
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