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“mathematical” Opeyemi And The Making Of Another Nigerian Intellectual 419er by Emmanuel602(m): 7:53am On Nov 21, 2015 |
The moment I read about Dr. Enoch Opeyemi's
claim to have solved the 156-year-old Riemann
Hypothesis in the Vanguard of November 15,
2015 , I didn't need to read a second opinion to
know it was suspect at best and fraudulent at
worst.
You don’t need to think too deeply to realize
that Dr. Opeyemi is one heck of a hilariously
delusional intellectual scammer in the mold of
Philip Emeagwali and Gabriel Oyibo . The second
to the last paragraph in the Vanguard story that
announced Opeyemi’s “mathematical genius”
was what did it for me. “Dr Enoch had
previously… discovered a scientific technique
for detecting and tracking someone on an evil
mission,” the report said . Seriously? How do you
scientifically detect and track someone on an
“evil mission”? What is an “evil mission,” and
what has science got to do with that? No one
with this kind of prescientific, atavistic mindset
can be trusted to have the cognitive capacity to
solve an age-old mathematical puzzle like the
Riemann Hypothesis. Now, Opeyemi’s only evidence for claiming to
have solved the Riemann Hypothesis was that he
presented a paper on the puzzle at the
International Conference on Mathematics and
Computer Science in Vienna, Austria.
Well, it has turned out that the conference itself
may be a borderline scam operation. An August
20, 2011 blog post titled “Fake Paper Accepted
by Nina Ringo's Vienna Conference” revealed
that a scientist by the name of Mohammad
Homayoun who was suspicious of the
genuineness of the International Conference on
Mathematics and Computer Science (ICMC)
decided to test his suspicion by submitting a
fake, worthless, nonsensical paper to the
conference to see if it would be accepted or
rejected.
The researcher’s hunch was accurate: the ICMC
in Vienna appears to be an elaborate, money-
making scholarly scam. His paper was accepted
even though it was intentionally nonsensical.
“The conference claims that submissions/papers
are reviewed/refereed BUT they are not,” the
researcher wrote. “A fake paper was submitted
for evaluation to intercomp2011@gmail.com on
Sun, Jan 2, 2011. The notification of acceptance
was received on Sun, Jan 9, 2011.” That’s just
one week of “peer review.”
But even if the conference were genuine, and it
could very well be, you can't prove something
as momentous as a 156-year-old mathematical
problem with a mere conference presentation.
In the rituals of knowledge production in
academe, for any claim to be taken seriously, it
has to be published in a well-regarded, peer-
reviewed outlet, such as a journal. This is
elementary knowledge.
In fact, a spokesperson for the US-based Clay
Mathematics Institute (CMI) , which offers a $1
million reward for anyone who can solve the
Reimann Hypothesis, told CNN that any claim to
have proved the hypothesis “would need to be
published in a journal ‘of worldwide repute’
and accepted for two years within the
mathematics community before it would be
considered.”
Opeyemi merely orally presented what he claims
is his proof of the hypothesis at a conference on
November 11. As of the time of writing this
column, there is no written record of the paper
Opeyemi presented at the conference, much less
its publication in a journal. He told CNN’s
Thomas Page that his proof of the hypothesis is
“due for publication by a journal attached to the
Vienna conference on December 1.” So why
claim to have solved a problem when you
haven’t even gone through the basic protocols
of scientific verification? Even if Opeyemi has
indeed proved the hypothesis, it would take two
years to earn the recognition and the reward.
Why is he jumping the gun?
But, most importantly, Opeyemi actually stands
no chance of even being able to prove the
hypothesis because none of the journals
published by the International Conference on
Mathematics and Computer Science is of
“worldwide repute.” The conference’s flagship
journal, called the International Scientific Journal ,
isn’t even listed, much less ranked, in Scientific
Journal Rankings (SJR) , the most prestigious
database that measures the scientific impact and
prestige of journals in the hard sciences.
My sense is that Dr. Opeyemi genuinely fancies
himself as having solved this mathematical
puzzle, and his self-construal of his intellectual
machismo got a boost when his paper got
accepted for presentation at a conference in
Vienna, Austria. In the now rampant xenophilic
academic culture in Nigeria that uncritically
valorizes the foreign, for one's paper to be
accepted at an "international" (read: white)
academic conference is seen as an endorsement
of one's peerless scholarly prowess. Never mind
that many of these “international” conferences
and journals are actually fraudulent.
When naive xenophilia seamlessly commingles
with the kind of mortifyingly cringe-
worthy credulity that pervades the Nigerian
media landscape AND the progressive dearth
and death of basic fact-checking in even
international media outlets like the BBC, you
end up with embarrassing stories like this.
This is not the first time this has happened. In
July 2011, another Nigerian academic by the
name of Michael Atovigba claimed to have
solved the same Riemann Hypothesis . The ever
so gullible Nigerian media believed and
celebrated him. The reason Atovigba convinced
himself that he had solved the mathematical
puzzle that Opeyemi now also claims to have
solved was that his paper (which has only seven
references, four of which are from Wikipedia!)
was found “worthy” of publication in an
"international" journal, which turned out to be a
notoriously worthless, predatory, bait-and-
switch Pakistan-based journal that masquerades
as a UK journal.
I wrote a widely circulated article on August 13,
2011 titled “Bait-and-Switch Publishing: New
Face of Academic Fraud” that exposed this
fraud. Among other things, I wrote: "Mr.
Atovigba’s claims to unparalleled mathematical
genius might very well be true, but we have no
way of knowing this for certain because he
chose to publish his 'record-breaking' findings
in the 'Research Journal of Mathematics and
Statistics' owned by a bait-and-switch
publishing company called Maxwell Scientific
Organization."
Atovigba told the (Nigerian) Guardian that he
would get his $1 million reward from the Clay
Mathematics Institute now that he had published
his “proof” in a “reputable international
journal.” Four years after, another deluded
Nigerian “scientist” claims to have proved the
same hypothesis for which Atovigba is still
expecting his $1 million, and the media’s
legendary amnesia ensures that these clowns
continue to expose Nigeria and Nigerians to
international ridicule. Incredible!
What is even more incredible is that a Nigerian
BBC correspondent’s story on Opeyemi, inspired
by Vanguard’s initial reporting (which was itself
instigated by Opeyemi himself), has caused the
British media to perpetrate Opeyemi’s
misrepresentation. Now, the British media’s
uncritical echoing of Opeyemi’s initial lie is
invoked as evidence to lend credibility to his
claims to a non-existent feat. It has become one
labyrinthine network of tortuous, self-
reinforcing falsehoods. Only Philip Emeagwali’s
carefully packaged fraud outrivals this. So sad! www.farooqkperogi.com/2015/11/mathematical-enoch-opeyemi-and-making.html?m=1
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