You hit the nail right on the head. Facts are very stubborn. Here is what a non-Igbo wrote about Emeagwali. Emotional outbursts will have no impact on these realities. Ultimately, that is why even people with Ph.D who try to defend Emeagwali can do no more than slobber over the issues.
MYTH #1: Emeagwali made the "world's fastest computation" in 1989 Each year since 1987, the judges for the annual Gordon Bell competition have given out multiple prizes for supercomputing applications, usually including one for performance (fastest speed), and one for price/performance (best speed/cost ratio; specifically, "price-performance ratio as measured in megaflop/s per dollar on a genuine application").
Despite what you may have read on the Internet, the 1989 prize for the fastest performance was awarded not to Emeagwali, but to another entrant:
quote:In the performance category, we awarded the prize to a team from Mobil Research and Development and Thinking Machines Corp. [...] Their solution of a seismic data-processing problem ran at almost 6 Gflops on a CM-2 Connection Machine. "Special Report: 1989 Gordon Bell Prize," IEEE Software, May 1990, p. 101
The winning speed of 6 Gflops was almost double that of Emeagwali's entry (3.1 Gflops, a speed that Emeagwali has repeatedly misrepresented as the "world's fastest"). The Mobil/TMC team achieved the best price-performance ratio too, but since no entry was allowed more than one prize, the price/performance award passed to Emeagwali (who also used a CM-2 Connection Machine) even though his score in that category was about 20% worse than the leading score:
quote:We awarded the price/performance prize to Philip Emeagwali [...] His model ran at a price/performance of slightly less than 400 Mflops per $1 million. While the Mobil/TMC team achieved almost 500 Mflops per $1 million, we decided to award only one prize per entry. "Special Report: 1989 Gordon Bell Prize," IEEE Software, May 1990, p. 101
See the yearly results for the performance and price/performance categories. In no year did Emeagwali achieve what he claims he did.
MYTH #2: Emeagwali won computing's equivalent of the Nobel Prize In spite of efforts by Emeagwali and his admirers to hype up his $1000 Gordon Bell award as the "Nobel Prize" of computing, http://www.google.com/search?q=%22turing+award%22+%22nobel+prize+in+OR+of+computing+OR+computer%22+OR+%22computing%27s+nobel%22&num=30&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&start=30&sa=N ] the rest of the computing world continues to associate that lofty label with the Turing Award, which Emeagwali has never won. The Gordon Bell prize, however, is just one of many other annual computing awards, respectable but not at all comparable to either the Nobel Prize or the Turing Award in prestige or prize money. Nor are the selection criteria analogous: Emeagwali was awarded for his performance in an annual competition, not in recognition of lasting contributions to his field.
MYTH #3: Emeagwali is a "Father of the Internet" 1. Emeagwali's paternity claims to the Internet are judged and found baseless. Emeagwali has not shown any evidence that he was involved with ARPA or any other research organization or company connected with the genesis of the Internet, nor did he express his ideas in technical journals or any other channel through which he could have influenced the development of the Internet during its formative stages. 2. Is there a father of the Internet? A discussion of the main contenders: JCR Licklider, Bob Taylor, Paul Baran, Donald Davies, and Lawrence Roberts.
MYTH #4: The "Connection Machine" was invented by Emeagwali A few Web sources expand the fallacy that Emeagwali created the fastest computer program, insisting that he was also responsible for the massively parallel supercomputer on which the program ran. However, the 65,000-processor "Connection Machine" that allowed such speedy computations was actually the brainchild of http://www.google.com/search?q=danny+OR+daniel+hillis+%22connection+machine%22+inventor+OR+invented ] Danny Hillis and was built by Thinking Machines Corporation, the company Hillis co-founded. The fact is extensively documented on the web and is so well established that I won't devote more attention to it.
MYTH #5: Emeagwali has lots of patents or patent applications The number of Emeagwali's patents or patent applications is sometimes claimed to be as high as 30. However, a search of the USPTO and esp@cenet patent databases (as of September 2003) reveals the true number to be zero. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has a fully searchable online database for all U.S. patents since 1976 as well as all current applications, simply has nothing on file for Emeagwali.
MYTH #6: "Dr." Emeagwali? Emeagwali is frequently referred to on his own and other websites as "Dr. Philip Emeagwali" or simply "Dr. Emeagwali." Though he did in fact enroll in a PhD program at the University of Michigan, he did not get the degree after failing his qualification examinations twice and having his thesis rejected by a committee of faculty members. Emeagwali subsequently sued the university, alleging civil rights violations and racial discrimination. His case was dismissed without trial. When Emeagwali appealed to a higher court, a three-judge panel rejected his discrimination claims unanimously. article describing the court decision decision from the MI Court of Appeals.
It's good to read that for the very first time, Emeagwali is writing about the University of Michigan.
[ August 02, 2005, 04:35 AM: Message edited by: Dr. B ]
Posts: 253 | Registered: Mar 2001
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quote:Here you go 'gain with your geography BS. Must one be from a particular area to ask questions or share ideas? …MeB
quote:But Ednut whats with the Geography scope? I am from old Anambra, NNEWI to be precise. So what? I just de yarn wetin I feel say na correct. I am not sure it has anything to do with Geography in my case. Igbo is Igbo to me….OWar
As a kid growing up in Enugu during the splitting of the former East Central State into Imo and Anambra State, most of the Anambra State Igbos were glad because they view the Imo people as always writing petitions against everything and everybody. Whenever things don't go their way, they will write all negatively just to destroy whatever that is. You see, that is why I think it is important that everybody commenting should at least tell us what part of Igboland they are from. Ngwagu, ka anyi gua nu onu.
___________________ Feel me? Ofu onye ana asi unu abia go. - Ednut Igbo-American . www.airamericaradio.com visit her. Posts: 2447 | From: Mother Earth | Registered: Mar 2001
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Since you have introduced that ugly dimension to this debate, here is what an Anambra man, Olisa H. Osita, had to say about Philip Emeagwali of Anambra:
quote:Ladies and Gentlemen:
PLEASE READ AND DIGEST EXCERPT FROM FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA WIKIPEDIA ON PHILIP EMEAGWALI BELOW AFTER MY BRIEF COMMENTARY:
What a shame that a man will intentionally mortgage his soul and conscience defending what is abundantly obvious as indefensible. Even your own child, if he or she is found to be making bogus claims, the best you can do for him or her is to keep deadly silence and quiet to avoid provoking disgust in the minds of decent human beings. At worse, is to shamelessly start to defend bogus claim as factual. When the world body concluded that Nigeria was the second most corrupt country in the world, here is a classic example of such instance.
Moral integrity is in short supply in Nigeria and among Nigerians. I cannot believe that decadence among Nigerians is at such the lowest ebb. Those with children, is this the type of story you will put in their heads and when on occasion they verbalize such falsity among their foreign peers, the latter will conclude that corruption is genetically coded among Nigerians rather than learned behavior.
Mr. Emeagwali is claiming what he is not and in good conscience, l cannot be a party for such conspiracy of silence and indulgence. Neither would l be a vector for propagating an absurd cover-up. Good luck to folks who lie as a matter of principle.
Olisa H. Osita
California
You have all read or you should have read the Wikipedia entries. So, I have not reproduced them here.
By the way, the name Chioma Ezeilo is an Anambra/Enugu name. People from Imo and Abia don't bear "Ezeilo."
Posts: 397 | Registered: May 2001
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Dr. B, I am sorely disapointed that you must resort to posting this excerpt from an anonymous and clearly racist wesite. The website you quote is by its own admision "dedicated to put some records straight about the genius and energy of African-American inventors" . The site has nothing good to say about any black man and is designed only to draw blck scientists into the mud. Have you been to the home page of the site at http://www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions/ .No? well I suggest you do so to understand the lack of quality and authority of your source. It is clearly 100% racist. More so since the so called facts in your article are anything but factual or accurate. Let us go for a little fact check. Myth 1: Emeagwali made the "world's fastest computation" in 1989. This is completely false as Emeagwali made no such claim Emeagwali tells us " Although, I programmed 65,536 processors to perform the world’s fastest computation (i.e. 3.1 billion calculations per second in 1988). However, I never set out to establish a world computing record. It made the headlines because it had, at that time, been widely believed that it would be impossible to program thousands of processors to outperform conventional supercomputers. So his claim to the worlds fastest computation is for the year 1988 not 1989 as you racist author claims. As a result of this little change in date, it becomes fallacious and wrong to conclude that because some other people won a Gordon Bell prize for the fastes computation in 1989 therefore Emeagwali did not perform the fastes computation in 1988. That argument is obviously just designed to confuse and mislead readers. That someone else wins fastest Gordon Bell prize in 1989 does nothing to prove Emeagwalis claim of 1988 wrong. this is nothing but irrelevant conclusion. The fallacy of the irrelevant conclusion tries to establish the truth of a proposition by offering an argument that actually provides support for an entirely different conclusion.
Myth 2: Emeagwali won computing's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. This so called myth is nothing but an appeal to emotion. The appeal to emotion relies upon emotively charged language to arouse strong feelings that may lead an audience to accept its conclusion. It matters nothing if Emeagwali compares his prize with Grammy, Oscar, or Nobel prize. Fact is he won the Gordon Bell prize on its own merit not as a nobel prize. Fact is also that numerous respected institutions have repeatedly reffered to the Gordon Bell prize as supercomputings nobel prize, see for example New African July August 1996. So it is as a matter of fact completely correct for Emeagwali to say on his website that "some people have reffered to it (Gordon Bell Prize) as supercomputings Nobel prize. since people have indeed made such comments even published, emeagwali is factualy correct in his claim and anyother thing is nothing but semantics. Note that emeagwali does not claim"it is the nobel prize" but his claim is "some people have reffered to it as nobel prize" Does that make him a criminal? I mean whats the big deal about here if not appeal to emotion? MYTH #3: Emeagwali is a "Father of the Internet" Again here intentional misquote from your source with the aim of initiating an appeal to emotion. Just like in point 2 above, Emeagwalis claim here is factual because his claim is not " I am a father of the internet" but rather his claim is " some people have called me a father of the internet" So what is your problem with that if some people have called him father of internet?. His claim is factual because it is on record that people have indeed called him that (e.g CNN). So how does that make him a criminal. He is rightly proud of the fact that he has been described as such and he is making the most of it, but it is certainly in no way criminal. MYTH #4: The "Connection Machine" was invented by Emeagwali This is completely false and an invention by your racist author. Emeagwali has never to the best of my knowledge laid claim to having invented the connection machine. It is outright lie. Dr. B if you believe what your racist source claims can you please link me to where Emeagwali claimed to have invented the CM? MYTH #5: Emeagwali has lots of patents or patent applications. If this myth was factuall at the time Ezeilos article was writen, it is certainly no longer so now. I cannot find such claim on his website. Even if it where there, so what ? Does that make him a criminal?
MYTH #6: "Dr." Emeagwali? Contrary to your racist authors claim, Emeagwali does not call himself a DR on his website.
And now we consider the question "what is fraud?" FRAUD, TO DEFRAUD - The term 'fraud' is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. [Fraud may also include an omission or intentional failure to state material facts, knowledge of which would be necessary to make other statements not misleading.]Lectric Law Library's Legal Lexicon.
So before you go around acusing people of fraud please make sure the following conditions are met 1. The fraudster gives you false information with the intention that you act on them. 2. As a result of the false information you suffer injury or damage.
So if someone claims to have 100 PhD on his website and one million patents, it may be untrue, in which case it is called a 'misrepresentation'. it does not constitue fraud because the false information is not for you to act upon and you do not suffer injury as a result of the information.
So tell me, you who shout 419, criminal and fraud, how much money has Emeagwalis claim to have 100 PhD and 1000000 patents removed from your pockets. Or in what way has it injured you. In no way is this associated with advanced fee fraud which is 419. So please make correct use of adjectives otherwise your claims and insinuations constitute nothing but an attempt to assasinate a brothers character. If Emeagwali na 419, then Fred Ajudua na wetin?
quote:As a kid growing up in Enugu during the splitting of the former East Central State into Imo and Anambra State, most of the Anambra State Igbos were glad because they view the Imo people as always writing petitions against everything and everybody. Whenever things don't go their way, they will write all negatively just to destroy whatever that is. You see, that is why I think it is important that everybody commenting should at least tell us what part of Igboland they are from. Ngwagu, ka anyi gua nu onu. – Ed.
Your sorry outlook on issues such as this makes one wonder about you. Could you tell us where hell literally was let loose in your East Central State” of today? I bet you did repeat ANAMBRA which followed the mayhem visited on your state by chimaroke nnamani the Igbo efulefu. From my experience here on BNW, most of the defenders of your Ojukwu and other Igbo sons like Ibiam are from the great state of Imo yet you see every disagreement from a very narrow perspective all to incite brothers to go after each other. “As a kid growing up in Enugu during the splitting of the former East Central” what the hell did you know then, “kid?” You see there is no way you could’ve known the politics of the time without someone in your family giving you this cock and cow tale that makes absolute no sense. The shame is not on you but on whoever gave you that BS because a lot of things could be said about your folks who were mostly UNQUALIFIED to hold the post they occupied. It seems our encounter of last time has worn off, the last time you brought your ethnic divide into this discussion and I responded in kind, you went baby-haywires, Ed. I think you should disabuse yourself from this embarrassing way of pitting Igbos against one another it does not speak well of you. By now, it should’ve been clear to you that whenever I and many others are discussing the Igbo situation be it amongst us or otherwise, we don’t see it from individual Igbo states rather we band together. I see every Igbo as ONE but to satisfy your nosy inquiry, this writer here represents the great state of IMO yet I’ve defended Ikemba, have great admiration for Sir Francis Ibiam who’s from Ebonyi, spoken well of C.C. Onoh from your state. I've also denounced emmanuel iwuanyawu, arthur nzeribe, achike udenwa and many, all from my state. Now what?
___________________ BIAFRA: The land of my ancestors now, yesterday and always. So it will be! Posts: 2482 | From: Ala Igbo | Registered: Apr 2004
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I have cautioned about droping this debate about Phillip Emeagwalli now this whole nonsesne have degenerated to name calling and which part of Igbo land is this and that. Please webmaster close this thread, I am not happy that we are trashing another Igbo son in this thread. I am not a fan of what Emeagwali have done, but ndigbo said if you beat your brother with the left hand you console him with the right hand. Whether we like it or not Emeagwali is one of us. When the eye start to cry the nose will follow suit.
Here is another one by Olisa H. Osita, in response to a Yoroba tongue-in-cheek mocker of Philip Emeagwali:
quote:Dear Ola:
I do not have any doubt in my mind that you are a great Nigerian patriot who wants advancement of our country and black people all over the world. Viewed from the point of view of patriotism, you would rather prefer that we whisper among ourselves in secured private environments so that others such as Americans, Europeans, Asians etc would not have cause to make fun of us. It is very understandable. I am not sure if you have taken the time to look deeply into the implications of what these two men represent and their impact on future generations.
I am convinced that by keeping quiet we are going to inaugurate what you fear most. That is, the ridicule will be intractable with roots and branches. We are dealing with tumor here and if it is not cut off now, it is going to cause us irreparable damage that will extend to unborn generations. Your position is analogous to the things that bedevil our country Nigeria. People cannot speak out against evil for fear of being tagged as sell-outs against their ethnic nationality on one hand. On the other hand, people fear speaking out out against evil committed by people of different ethnic nationalities to avoid being stigmatized as tribalists. This is the mindset that helps to perpetuate corruption in our society. Evil condoned anywhere is evil everywhere.
You know what we are dealing with in our hands here? We are dealing with hybrid, sophisticated con artists. We so not have any alternative except to put a stop to this shameful behavior. Time will tell.
For your information, "MFLOPS" means: M - mega (million); FLOPS - floating point operations. Floating point numbers have decimal points in them eg 2.0; this is opposed to binary integer eg 2; A floating number is expressed as the product of two parts: the mantissa and a power of two.
Gordon Bell Prize, is the recognition of application of supercomputers to scientific and engineering problems. The award is in categories. Emeagwali won in the category of Price / Performance. The purpose of the award is to track the progress over time of parallel computing in applications. This second entry is the demonstration of best price-performance ratio as measured in mega-flops per dollar on a genuine application.
Gordon Bell is currently a senior researcher in Microsoft's Media Presence Research Group. He had interest in multiprocessors (mP) since 1965. Gordon Moore made famous observation in a paper (1965), where he predicted that the number of transistors per integrated circuit would double every year and the speed would double every 18 months. Supercomputers or parallel computers are used in many engineering and scientific applications such as: seismic data processing; DNA sequence matching; grid generation program used to solve partial differential equations; beam stress analysis; static finite element analysis etc.
Emeagwali submitted entry in terms of "price / performance" in oil reservoir modeling application program showing a performance of 400 Mflops/ $ M on a CM-2. Mr Emeagwali did not design supercomputer. He demonstrated cost effectiveness when supercomputer is used in oil reservoir modeling application in relation to other applications.
Mr. Emeagwali has nothing to do with Internet technology based on many papers l have reviewed vis-a-vis his many claims. Like Oyibo, both are on a wild goose chase. Time will tell. Olisa H. Osita California
Olisa Osita was responding to exchanges, which include these between Ola and Dare, both Yoruba:
quote:Dare:
Such a declaration will be unfair. These two individuals remain in my own estimation brilliant individuals who made errors of judgement. There is a tendency amongst Nigerians to over flog and over estimate our shortcomings both as individuals and collectively as a nation. In contrast we tend to underestimate our individual and collective achievements as a nation.
I think the debates on Mr Emegwali's and Prof. Oyibo's qualifications have exhausted their tenures. There is no need flogging our heroes in public, especially those we have placed on high pedestals. It is like washing our dirty linens in public!
My only advice to Mr Emegwaali and Prof. Oyibo is that they should now set the records straight to reflect their true academic records. In the case of Mr Emegwali, no one has been able to find an instance where he actually misrepresented himself as a Ph.D holder. He is being flogged to death simply for failing to issue instant corrections when he is erroneously introduced as Dr Emegwali. We have been shown instances where he claimed to have won a prize for the fastest computer/dollar (when infact he had the second fastest) but actually received the award because the builders of the fastest computer didnot qualify since they having the overall price. Hey--building the second fastest computer is still a major fit to me! I am still trying to get my head around what a megaflop speed is!
Prof. Oyibo and Mr Emegwali are guilty of exaggeration of credentials. However, we must not allow these errors of judgement as serious as they are to overshadow their other accomplishments.
Thank you.
Ola
quote:..Can we all declare Oyibo/Emeagwali as brilliantly fraudulent scholars??Can anybody send me more details on this matter before...??
Dare.
Next, I will post the reponse of emeagwali.com to a comment concerning Emeagwali's expulsion from the University of Michigan.
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Forwarded on behalf of emeagwali.com by the emeagwali.com webmaster, "Donita Brown" :
quote:Emeagwali never sued for those two degrees in civil engineering. If he did, it will be in complaint submitted to the court. In fact, he never appeared in court and never hired an attorney to sue for the civil engineering degrees. Your discussions were about two degrees in civil engineering. Yes, the court ruled that Emeagwali should not be granted those two degrees in civil engineering, but the intriguing part is that he never sued for those degrees. It was a fight and a victory to withheld two civil engineering degrees which he never sued for.
A "doctoral candidate in scientific computing," by definition, passed the qualifying examination in scientific computing. Again, Emeagwali took and passed the Ph.D. qualifying examination in scientific computing.
It is like suing for the murder of your father [scientific computing] and the defendant proves that your mother [civil engineering] is still living. Then you argue that you sued for the murder of your father and the defendant argues that another person is your biological father. It, effectively, degenerates to a paternity case.
In this case, the paternity issue was over admission. The university argued that he never obtained “necessary signatures, and therefore was never officially admitted. The latter is a false pretext. And I quote from the email correspondence dated July 3, 1991, between two university administrators [taken from the court and university records]
quote:So, we may well get sued, the legalities are that he was NEVER ADMITTED [emphasis in original] to our program because he did not obtain the necessary signatures
the [admission signature] space for the thesis advisor will remain forever blank
Our official position: never in our program, never going to be in our program.
Again, the court and university records show that although it is true that he never obtained the necessary signatures, it is equally true that the university wanted the signature space to remain forever blank.
The university did not contest that he completed the Ph.D. degree in Scientific Computing. The university argued that even though he took and passed the examinations, he was never admitted into the Ph.D. program because the necessary signatures were missing.
And we know, from the scanned articles posted at http://www.emeagwali.com/usa/michigan/today/, that the university revered him enough to do a special issue on his dissertation research and mail copies to 400,000 alumni.
So, what was the university’s motive for behaving so strangely?
In essence, the lawsuit was about the university’s insistence that Emeagwali must grant honorary authorship to his thesis advisor, as a precondition to getting his advisor’s signature, which, in turn, was a precondition to earning the Ph.D. degree in Scientific Computing. There were several out of court negotiations that I cannot discuss. But we know one fact, Emeagwali kept all the credit for his discoveries and he became famous while his thesis advisor remains obscure.
Someone queried: Why don’t we (emeagwali.com) correct those that append titles before Emeagwali’s name. The reason is that, in both the legal and dictionary sense, it is correct to address him as Dr. or Prof. We never claimed that Emeagwali holds a nine-to-five teaching job at any university. But it is not a secret that he lectures occasionally at universities. It’s also not a secret that the standard speaker's fee for a top technologist is $40,000 plus expenses, as published in the March 22, 1999 issue of Forbes magazine (forbes.com). Those who pay his lecture fees are entitled to address him as as long as they are happy with the value he delivers during his lectures.
Let me close with one food for thought. Have you ever wondered why it took eight MIT Ph.D.s to win the other Gordon Bell Prize? Sometimes it takes 18 Ph.D.s to win it. The answer is that it takes six years to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics or physics or computer science, and it is impossible to reach that level with a Ph.D. degree. You have to go way beyond that level.
It took Emeagwali twelve years (1977-89) of continuous graduate study in six universities to acquire his skills, namely (1) reformulate Newton’s Second Law of Motion as nine partial differential equations for three-phase, three-dimensional porous media flow, (2) discretize all nine equations, (3) prove their stability, and (4) program and execute those equations on a message-passing supercomputer.
The experts in this news group know that first three parts are the simplest and can be completed with only pencil and paper. To prove how extraordinarily difficult this problem is, I hereby make a $5,000 offer to any expert who can email a written solution to the first three parts within ten days. This assignment will prove that even those with a Ph.D. in related fields cannot even consult a textbook and/or experts that will enable them do the preliminary work needed to repeat what Emeagwali did 20 years ago.
In ten days, you will discover that after all is said and done a lot more is said than done.
Of course, all of this was set in motion by the Chioma Ezeilo article.
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"The experts in this news group know that first three parts are the simplest and can be completed with only pencil and paper. To prove how extraordinarily difficult this problem is, I hereby make a $5,000 offer to any expert who can email a written solution to the first three parts within ten days. This assignment will prove that even those with a Ph.D. in related fields cannot even consult a textbook and/or experts that will enable them do the preliminary work needed to repeat what Emeagwali did 20 years ago."
Here's an opportunity for the Ngwati Loud-Mouths on newsgroups, "Olisa H. Osita" and other such Igbo haters, to show what they got and make extra change along the way. This is time to walk the walk; talk is cheap. If the Ngwati, "Olisa H. Osita" and other such Igbo haters, cannot take up this challenge and make extra change for themselves, they must stay quiet, remain on the sidelines and observe, as Biafrans and others who invent continue to add to the things make life better.
___________________ achieve Biafra and show the difference Posts: 642 | From: Los Angeles, CA | Registered: Nov 2002
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I can't be the only one who sees how Ednut runs away from himself after starting unnecessary fire with his insults on Igbos who hails outside his Enugu whatever. This brother turns around to make it look as though someone else imported "what part are you from" nonsense and the rubbish about “petition” into the gist. We definitely know who the conflicted persona here is.
___________________ BIAFRA: The land of my ancestors now, yesterday and always. So it will be! Posts: 2482 | From: Ala Igbo | Registered: Apr 2004
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Those Conflicting quoted sentences were your keyboard expressing what is going on in your mind MeB. Don't even go there buddy for you have been outted.
___________________ Feel me? Ofu onye ana asi unu abia go. - Ednut Igbo-American . www.airamericaradio.com visit her. Posts: 2447 | From: Mother Earth | Registered: Mar 2001
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Like I said Ed, you and you alone injected a rather sad dimension to a debate that never should have a thing to do with old East Central. I guess you never saw how insulting that allusion to “petition” crap was to folks from Abia & Imo states? It was your imaginary petition that forced my keyboard to spill out the lack of qualifications of those that occupied the positions then. Fair should be fair unless when Ed is involved? I do not know Mazi Emeagwali, he does not improve my life one way or the other my beef with him is his false claims. This notwithstanding I still feel he's a smart brother with the knack to over embellish after all we’ve seen millionaires who are also SHOPLIFTERS, actress Winona Ryder easily comes to mind here. Maybe had our sister Chioma shown a little love while denouncing him it would have been ok. Still she’s not responsible for his deception. PERIOD! Can’t take the heat then scramble out of the kitchen is my advice to you, nwa nnaa.
___________________ BIAFRA: The land of my ancestors now, yesterday and always. So it will be! Posts: 2482 | From: Ala Igbo | Registered: Apr 2004
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Chioma Ezeilo saw the truth about Mr. Philip Emeagwali and she told the truth without flinching. That is why no one has been able to impeach anything that Chioma wrote. Indeed, Emeagwali himself has unwittingly admitted to nearly all that has been revealed about him. For example, Emeagwali has moved away from claiming that the "Gordon Bell award is Computing's highest honor - the Nobel Prize of Computing" Now, Emeagwali claims that "Gordon Bell award is Supercomputing's highest honor - the Nobel prize for Supercomputing." It is like pretending that the Nobel Prize in Physics does not encompass Modern Physics. That is Emeagwali admitting that the Turing award is indeed computings highest honor. Also, in the interview posted by Wacko, Emeagwali all but admitted that he owns no patents, but he continued to lie that he has numerous pending patents. Those familar with Igbo mailing lists know that "Donita Brown" is euphemism for Emeagwali. With the "Donita Brown" post, the jury is now in on "Dr." Emeagwali. MeBiafran and others on this board are not the only ones who clearly read of "Dr. Philip Emeagwali" at emeagwali.com. I also read it. We also read of "Professor Emeagwali." Of course that was before those references were deleted from emeagwali.com, following revelations about Mr. Emeagwali's experirnce at Michigan U.
Igbo people have nothing to gain from promoting fraud. I cannot imagine that the nation that honors Chinua Achebe for his achievement, especially as the author of "Things Fall Apart," should be caught making a mockery of Achebe's honor by colluding to praise the fraud that Emeagwali represents. Let there be no mistakes. In the case of Philip Emeagwali, we are not just talking about exaggerations or hype. We are talking about fraud, falsehood, and outright illegal conduct.
If we allow people to shoot to prominence by making false statement and telling outright lies, it is the Igbo nation that will suffer when we are no longer able to distinguish those who have truly excelled from those who have duped us into thinking that they have.
Even Emeagwali's defense of himself shows that he willfully defrauded his Igbo and other audiences, especially the Americans, the people who gave him the $1,000.00 award. But, clearly, Emeagwali did not reserve his dishonesty for his dealings with outsiders alone; Nd'Igbo were not spared. I commend Chioma ezeilo for calling a spade a spade.
Amadi O:
You should read up on Jonathan Elendu, whom you now castigate for criticizing Emeagwali's deceptive behavior. Before the truth about Mr. Emeagwali came to be known, Jonathan Elendu was one of those Igbo writers who either wrote to praise Emeagwali or looked the other way as Emeagwali was spreading lies online. Of course, he too was relying on what he found at emeagwali.com. Now, he knows better, and like Chioma Ezeilo, Jonathan Elendu is calling it as he sees it.
The Igbo Nation can be a society based on merit or it can be a society based on falsehood. We cannot have it both ways.
[ August 03, 2005, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: Patrick ]
Posts: 397 | Registered: May 2001
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In 1987, the University of Michigan accepted him as a pre-candidate doctoral student of the College of Engineering. Two years later, he won the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for his work in super computing. Using more than sixty-five thousand processors, he programmed "the connection machine to compute 3.1 billion calculations per second…to simulate oil reservoirs."
Phillip Emeagwali
Nigerians heard of this amazing feat by one of their own and celebrated it. We have heard other wonderful stories about Phillip Emeagwali, the Nigerian born computer scientist. Many wonderful things have been written about him in the media, especially the Internet. CNN has been quoted as calling him one of the fathers of the Internet. Only problem with that claim is that nobody knows which anchor or reporter and on what show Emeagwali was described as one of the fathers of the Internet.
Genuine stories about Phillip Emeagwali have not garnered the same level of publicity. These include his suit against the University of Michigan for refusing to award him a doctorate degree in super computing or engineering. On the morning of Friday, 1 August 1991, Emeagwali had a meeting with Erdogan Gulari, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the College of Engineering. At the said meeting Gulari told Emeagwali that for him to be considered for a PhD, he had to submit his dissertation by 1 October 1991. This was in addition to other requirements. Emeagwali agreed to this condition. Sometime in the middle of 1992, Emeagwali submitted his dissertation.
Emeagwali's dissertation was reviewed by a panel which comprised of people within the University of Michigan and some external academics. They concluded that Emeagwali's work did not merit a Ph.D. In 1996, he sued the University, alleging racial discrimination. The suit was summarily dismissed. In October 1999, Emeagwali appealed and the Michigan Court of Appeals which comprised of William B. Murphy, Donald E. Holbrook, J., and Hilda R. Gage, concurred with the lower court and dismissed his appeal.
Phillip Emeagwali has been described by some websites as one of the most popular of Africans. He is ranked in achievement and popularity with the likes of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Nelson Mandela. Yet, some writers have suggested that these claims are misleading and dubious. Why? Most of these websites crediting Emeagwali with these glowing tributes are owned by him, or his wife.
In an interview with one Mary Bellis, Emeagwali claims to have been homeless from 1967-1970. While that claim is true, he fails to mention that millions of other Nigerians from the East were homeless too, as the area was a war zone at the time. There are many lingering questions which this reporter wants answered. Is Emeagwali an icon of his time, or a con man who has engaged in a very sophisticated public relations campaign that has been sustained for over a decade?
We contacted Phillip Emeagwali's office and emailed Dr. Donita Brown, who is claimed to be a curator on one of the Emeagwali web sites. Our calls to "Emeagwali research" were answered by a lady who promised to forward our calls to him. And Dr. Brown responded to our email as follows:
Jonathan:
I am sorry we did not respond to your previous emails. Some emails get misdirected or filtered by our anti-spam software.
He prefers that we not forward interview requests to him. He only gives about one African-media interview in five years and has not travelled to Africa in 18 years.
The URLs below contain 250 pages of his answers to FAIQs (Frequently Asked Interview Questions) regarding his scientific work and his thoughts on contemporary issues.
We plan a major update (100 additional pages) in late September 2005. Best wishes on your story.
Regards, Webmaster, emeagwali.com
As a rule we, at Elendureports.com, do not take excerpts from answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in lieu of an interview. However, the email reproduced verbatim, except for the web links, has raised more questions than it answered.
Emeagwali has described himself as “the Bill Gates of Africa,” yet he has not set foot on African soil in eighteen years. The real Bill Gates has spent more time in Africa in the past twenty years than Emeagwali. How have Africa and its diverse population benefited from Emeagwali's success? The email response states that he grants one interview every five years to an African media. While the answer may be true, albeit preposterous, it suggests the mindset of an individual who has a bloated estimate of his own worth.
Claims of Emeagwali holding patents to forty-one inventions are splashed on his websites. We searched for these patents at the appropriate places and came up with nothing to corroborate those claims. Where are these patents registered? Who in the scientific community is aware of these inventions? Could it be that the computer on which I am writing this story was invented by my tribesman and I don't know? "I have expertise in five different fields which helps me to easily understand the analogy between my scientific problems and those occurring in nature. First, I identify an analogous problem in nature and borrow from it. It is smarter to borrow from nature than to reinvent the wheels." What are these five areas of expertise? If the University of Michigan did not award Phillip Emeagwali a Ph.D., then where did he obtain his doctorate degree? In the same interview with Mary Bellis he claims to work with a fifty-five million dollar computer. Where does Emeagwali practice his trade? "Today, I have access to a $55 million super computer while many African scientists do not have access to a personal computer. The greater opportunity enabled me to make important discoveries and inventions" he told Mary Bellis.
Emeagwali has been married to Dale Emeagwali since 1981. Is Dale Emeagwali the same person as Dr. Donita Brown? Our research indicates that Donita Brown is Dale Emeagwali. Isn’t it curious that while she is called Dale Emeagwali on their family website, she is called Donita Brown other websites registered either by herself, or her husband, Phillip? Certainly none of these websites were registered before 1981. When asked if Donita Brown, the lady we spoke to in Emeagwali's office told us she did not Phillip Emeagwali's relationship with Donita Brown. Pray, this person works in Emeagwali's office and knows Donita Brown! The natural question is why does Emeagwali's wife have two identities?
We were also curious to find out how a man who claims to love Africa and its people so much, and have given speeches on the "brain drain" syndrome proudly exhibit as one of his greatest achievements, the thirty-five members of his immediate and extended families he relocated to America. There are no records to indicate that these people went back to Africa after their studies. From all available records, Emeagwali's five siblings live in the United States as do his parents. Yet, the man has no qualms giving speeches on the harmful effects of "brain drain" on the continent of Africa and what can be done to stem the tide.
Even more curious is that a man, who positions himself as a serious scientist, has a website dedicated to showing off his family photos, yet there is no website dedicated to showing his inventions. Nobody should quarrel with a man who wants to spend time and resources showing off his wardrobe, wife, and son. However, other writers have suggested that such behavior is at odds with the characteristics of a serious-minded scientist. Is Philip Emeagwali a showman, who has set up virtual edifices to bolster his ego, or a scientist with too much time on his hands?
A critic of Emeagwali, Chioma K. Ezeilo in a piece entitled, "Self-Promotion and Self-Authentication…," spoke to Emeagwali's showmanship: "I understand that Hollywood stars and musicians and others of that ilk have what they term their official website, where fans can read all about them and learn what these individuals have accomplished professionally…Philip Emeagwali is not a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, so I wonder why he believes it necessary to build this online shrine to himself." But she was more concerned about another matter, as she states, "The thing that bothered me was the outright lies, half-truths, and numerous unsubstantiated claims that permeated the website." Elendureports.com tried to contact Chioma K. Ezeilo, but our efforts yielded no fruit. Mary Bellis did not respond to our request for interview before press time.
Since we published out story on Prof Gabriel Oyibo, we have been inundated with emails asking all kinds of questions about this gentleman. There have also been questions about Nigerians who are supposed to be very accomplished, yet, making fraudulent claims that astonish their colleagues and contemporaries. While a fair minded person would be inclined to believe that the jury is still out on Phillip Emeagawli and his accomplishments, there is a question that needs to be asked and answered: Is it greed, ego, criminal ignorance, or in-built self destructive tendencies that lead our people to make claims that cannot be substantiated easily?
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