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Yes. There is a grass-roots organization providing letter templates, telling people which senators to call, and so on.:Vaccinate California SB 277 has a powerful roster of supporters, as of April 8 (I haven't updated the list since then):Vaccinate California (sponsor)American Academy of PediatricsAmerican Lung AssociationBiocomCalifornia Association of Nurse PractitionersCalifornia Chapter of the American College of Emergency PhysiciansCalifornia Children’s Hospital AssociationCalifornia Coverage and Health InitiativesCalifornia Immunization CoalitionCalifornia Medical AssociationCalifornia Optometric AssociationCalifornia School Nurses OrganizationCalifornia State Parent-Teacher AssociationChildren NowChildren’s Defense Fund CaliforniaChildren’s Specialty Care CoalitionCounty of Los AngelesCounty of Santa CruzHealth Officers Association of CaliforniaInsurance Commissioner Dave JonesKaiser PermanenteMarch of Dimes California ChapterProvidence Health and Services Southern CaliforniaSan Francisco Unified School DistrictSecular Coalition for CaliforniaSilicon Valley Leadership GroupSolano Beach School DistrictThe Children’s PartnershipHundreds of individualsBy contrast, here are the organizations (with my commentary) opposing SB277.[Health Committee Analysis] Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Inc. state that the need for informed consent is a firmly established principal of medical ethics and human rights and that the state has no right to force medical interventions on people without their consent"About AAPShttp://www.aapsonline.org/Rational Wiki:Association of American Physicians and SurgeonsThe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a small group of physicians who advocate for far-right conservative values in the practice of medicine. While purporting to have high regard for the Hippocratic Oath, "the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship, and the "practice of private medicine"[1], it appears to treat these concepts as terms of art. Despite also calling itself "non-partisan", its main focus appears to be opposing abortion, vaccination, universal health care coverage and Obamacare in particular, and birth control.---------------------[Health Committee Analysis] California Chiropractic Association"The California Chiropractic Association mentions that the Mayo Clinic warns against undermining the principle of informed consent in favor of universal vaccination and further states we ought not let a handful of measles cases at Disneyland turn into a full-scale assault on civil and human rights in America. "About CCAhttps://www.calchiro.org/Oppose SB 277 - Elimination of Vaccination Personal Belief Exemption"Stay with the framing of the issue provided. It’s about choice/informed consent. We are NOT anti-vaccine we are pro-informed consent and choice. Make the case that the data (provided in our talking points) demonstrates there are risks to taking the vaccine so there should be choice. "-------------------------[Health Committee Analysis] California Naturopathic Doctors Association (unless amended)"California Naturopathic Doctors Association (CNDA) states that it supports immunization for the prevention of disease and the public health objective of achieving high rates of immunity to infectious disease. CNDA states that as licensed primary care doctors who can diagnose medical conditions such as anaphylaxis and immunodeficiency, reasons outlined in the CDC’s list of contraindications to common pediatric vaccinations, naturopathic doctors must also be able to sign medical waivers for vaccination, when such medical conditions exist. CNDA opposes this bill unless it is amended to include NDs as providers who can sign medical waivers for vaccination."About CNDAhttp://www.calnd.org/[nothing on the website about SB277. Marty Block toured Bastyr University California in October 2014., and is the author of an expansion of practice bill for naturopaths.During the tours, students spoke about their education and their chosen profession. Says Adam Silberman, a third-year naturopathic medical student, “Being able to walk Senator Block and his staffer Roberto Alcantar through our clinic – explaining to them our philosophy of care and strong clinical training – brought me a strong sense of pride and excitement. How we are learning to work with patients will transform health care in California, and I think Senator Block and Congressman Hunter both saw that first-hand during their visits.”Lawmakers Tour Bastyr University CaliforniaMarty Block is the only sponsor for SB538, a bill that would greatly increase naturopaths' scope of practice.Bill StatusCuriously, there's nothing about the bill on his website.Senator Marty Block Legislative Update--------[Health Committee Analysis] California Nurses for Ethical StandardsAbout CNESBig issue is opposition to abortion and sex ed in schools.http://ethicalnurses.org/http://ethicalnurses.org/?p=2703SB277 seeks to remove the Personal Belief Exemption and mandate full vaccination of any pupil, from daycare through secondary school, public and private, in order to attend. Additionally, SB277 does not limit the ever-expanding vaccine schedule or the requirement of additional vaccines to attend school; in 2012 there were nearly 300 new vaccines in the pipeline. CNES strongly asserts principals of informed consent, personal belief, medical, religious, and philosophic exemptions, in accordance with the AMA and in the interest of maintaining ethical integrity in our public health laws. California Nurses For Ethical Standards oppose SB277.“If there is a risk then there should be a choice”[from hearing ] 1:30:03 California Nurses for Ethical Standards--------[Health Committee Analysis] California ProLife CouncilAbout California ProLife CouncilAction Alert!SB 277 – Mandated Childhood Vaccines Intrude on Parental Rights (Pan) – OPPOSEThis bill strives to eliminate the personal belief exemption option from the school immunization law forcing parents to vaccinate their children from all diseases deemed necessary by the Department of Public Health (DPH). Some immunizations use tissue from aborted babies.------------[Health Committee Analysis] California Right to Life Committee, Inc.http://www.calright2life.org/[nothing on webpage, most likely similar to California ProLife Council.]------------[Health Committee Analysis] Canary Party"The Canary Party maintains that the United States Justice System deems each and every vaccine on the market as “unavoidably unsafe”, which means that even when used as directed, someone will be harmed, or may even die from the vaccine. "About the Canary Party"The Canary Party is a tiny organization focused on promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism. They have branched out some with GMOs and “health freedom”, but their core seems to be the failed idea that vaccines cause autism. "More Canary Party financial documentsJennifer Larson, who is with the tiny “Canary Party”. Tax documents indicate that Ms. Larson is a large financial backer of the Canary Party. Searching for what donations Ms. Larson has made (using OpenSecrets.org, the Center for Responsive Politics) I found a total of $40,000 donations to Congressman Issa, his PAC and the Republican National Committee though Ms. Larson and her company Vibrant TechnologiesOne year and $40,000 later and another hearinghttp://www.canaryparty.org/[almost defunct organization; has been replaced by Barry Segal's Focus for Health, it appears. ]You Simply Have To Be Pro-Health - Focus for Health[from hearing ] 1:21:03 Canary Party------------[Health Committee Analysis] Capitol Resource Institute"The Capitol Resource Institute notes that following the passage of AB 2109 the personal belief exemption rate fell from 3.1 percent in 2013 to 2.5 percent in 2014 after only a partial implementation of the law, and that this bill is far reaching and unnecessary. "About the Capitol Resource Institutehttp://capitolresource.org/about-us/"CRI’s mission is to educate and strengthen families and we do that by working to influence public policy. It’s imperative that citizens join with us in staying up to speed on current legislation affecting family values! As your watchdog for family values here in Sacramento, CRI is committed to keeping you informed about important legislation. So, stay tuned!"Against LGBT issues being taught in school, against same-sex marriage, extremely Christian oriented.------------[Health Committee Analysis] Educate. Advocate."Educate. Advocate. writes that every medical intervention has both benefits and risks and that parents, not the State of California, have the right to decide which medical interventions their children receive"About Educate.Advocate."To assist and provide support to anyone with or connected to someone with special needs and/or disabilities at any age in the area surrounding mainly San Bernardino and Riverside county in California."Board members:Kristie Reneé Sepulveda-Burchit, Amy Carrillo, Marilyn Interian, Jerri Carpinteyro[many members believe their children are vaccine injured][from hearing ] 2:12:24 Educate Advocate------------[Health Committee Analysis] Families for Early Autism Treatment [FEAT]" Families for Early Autism Treatment contend that this bill is contrary to the rights protected by the State and Federal Constitutions as it denies rights to privacy, education, free assembly, religious expression, consensual use of one’s physical body and liberty. "About FEAT"FEAT is a non-profit, volunteer-driven organization of parents, family members, and treatment professionals dedicated to providing best outcome Education, Advocacy and Support for the Northern California Autism Community."[many members believe that vaccines caused their children's autism]------------[Health Committee Analysis] Homeschool Association of California"The Homeschool Association of California states this bill will negatively impact the freedom to homeschool and would make it impossible for many families to choose to homeschool legally. They argue that almost all homeschooling families use a legal option that involves attendance at some form of public or private school, either operated by a third party or operated by parents who file a private school affidavit, yet current law requires children admitted to private schools be fully vaccinated in accordance with existing law."AboutHSC[nothing on the website.][from hearing ] 1:25:40 Home School Association of California------------[Health Committee Analysis] National Vaccine Information Center"The National Vaccine Information Center argues that it’s particularly disturbing that physicians in the American Medical Association Code of Ethics affirm philosophical and religious exemptions for themselves yet want to remove this right for California parents."About NVICDespite its name, it is not a government body. It is a nonprofit whose mission is to create fear and doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The best introduction:NVIC? Know the Omissions------------[Health Committee Analysis] Pacific Justice Institute Center for Public Policy"The Pacific Justice Institute argues that statewide vaccination rates exceed the threshold for herd immunity and, to the extent that a few communities have fallen below vaccination levels needed for herd immunity, the Legislature could consider approaches that allow greater local decision-making and accountability rather than imposing across-the-board statewide mandates."About -- from Wikipedia.PJI provides pro bono representation in matters involving the exercise of religion and other civil liberties. It has supported the recitation of "under God" as part of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, homeschooling, and the enforcement of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.In 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the Pacific Justice Institute as an anti-LGBT hate group.------------[Health Committee Analysis] ParentalRights.orgAbout"ParentalRights.Org's mission is to protect children by empowering parents through adoption of the Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and by preventing U.S. ratification of UN Conventions that threaten parental right:" It is primarily organized in opposition to the UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child, which has long been a dog-whistle element in the far right.------------[Health Committee Analysis] SafeMindsAboutSafeMinds is an acronym for Sensible Action For Ending Mercury Induced Neurological Disorders. It is a parent-advocacy group that originally advanced the belief that thimerosal in vaccines cause autism; it has since morphed into a general-purpose anti-vaccine, autism-hating organization. It used to have rather a lot of clout; the failure of the mercury-causing-autism hypothesis in the Omnibus Autism Hearing (OAR) seems to have made the organization much less relevant.SAFEMINDS board:Sallie Bernard (New Jersey)Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN (Georgia)Heidi Roger (New Jersey/New York)Laura Bono (North Carolina)Maria Dwyer (New York)Albert EnayatiStephen D. KetteScott LasterJackie Lombardo (Virginia)Cynthia Nevison (Colorado)Katie Weisman (New York)Katie Wright (Connecticut)------------Hundreds of individuals------[from hearing ] 1:16:25 Ruth Westerich (sp) claiming to speaking for a San Diego "group of over 500,000 healthcare practitioners"-------[from hearing ] 1:17:59 Wendy Silver; Million Mamas MovementPrimarily a peace movement but also no vaccines, evidently.Become a Million Mama - Million Mamas Movement-------[from hearing ] 1:18:35 Slow and No Vax Moms"extensive yahoo group in your area for parents. It's called slow and no vax moms. Look it up, and they should be able to help you."Yahoo! Groups"This group does not advocate any vaccine over another as they all have adverse effects. All discussion is from a "con" stance for each and every vaccine. This is not a place for debate of the vaccine issues. Discussing the "pro" viewpoint of any vaccine is not a part of this forum in any way."---------[from hearing ] 1:18:55 Campaign for Liberty, asks Senator Allen for a dateRon Paul's groupCampaign for Liberty - Reclaim the Republic. Restore the Constitution.---------[from hearing ]1:21:56 Laura Hayes; Mind Institute, FEAT, California Coalition for Health Choice, Canary PartyHayes of the founding families of MIND Institute; still fixated on vaccines cause autism. She's been published at the anti-vaccine, autism-hating blog Age of Autism.David Gorski, writing as Orac, has addressed her issues:No, no, no! Fifteen times, no!Tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movement (2014 edition)The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 14: Vaccine “Trafficking” and beyond-----------[from hearing ]1:27:51 Our Kids, Our Choice(seems to be a subgroup of the other antis, focusing on producing Youtube Videos)-------[from hearing ] 1:30:30 Congressional Prayer Conference of Washington DC, spoke about the letter they sent to Senator Pan the day before and is very aggressive in tone. Laughter from oppo when he finishes------[from hearing ] 1:40:35 Dr. Bob Sears[anti-vaccine pediatrician]-------[from hearing ] 1:48:20 Environmental Voiceshttp://environmentalvoices.org/index.htmlRocklin-based anti-GMO, anti-toxins organization.--------[from hearing ] 2:00:03 National Autism Association of CAHelp and Hope for Families Affected by Autism[believes that vaccines cause some or most cases of autism. National organization with state chapters -- several in California]-----[from hearing] Dana Gorman, Thriiive.com and #b1less

Great question. This answer is based on an investigation done by Sahara Reporters in New York.Philip Emeagwali stirs up diverse emotions in Nigerians, Africans, and black people around the world. His claim of being a father of the Internet, of having invented the Connection Machine, of possessing 41patented inventions, of winning “the Nobel Prize of Computing” and of being a “doctor” and/or professor” have been conclusively debunked with widely documented evidence. [1]Yet, the figure of Emeagwali as a black scientific, engineering, and information technology genius and pioneer continues to loom large over discussions of black achievement. The legend of Philip Emeagwali’s purported inventions, widely proven to emanate from the perverse deceptive genius of the man himself, endures and proliferates among Nigerian and black groups around the world.Only recently, the USAfricadialogue googlegroups listserv managed by Professor Toyin Falola of the University of Texas hosted a discussion on Philip Emeagwali’s vast fraud. Participants in the discussion included Nigerian and African intellectuals, scientists, engineers, and IT professionals. Overall, the discussion reinforced and reiterated one of the worst kept secrets in the Nigerian Diaspora, especially in its online community: that none of Emeagwali’s highfalutin claims, on whose strength he has curried and continues to curry favor and recognition from gullible and hero-hungry black people, is true. Yet, just a few days ago, one of Nigeria’s more visible dailies, The Vanguard, included the academic and intellectual fraud in its list of 20 “most influential Nigerians.” Curiously, unlike previous Nigerian publications and profiles on Mr. Emeagwali, the biographical write-up accompanying the nomination does not repeat any of the well-known claims and “achievements” that Emeagwali has aggressively and fraudulently peddled about himself — claims that many of our people regard as truth. Apparently, the journalists at The Vanguard have become exposed to the widely available refutations of those claims and now know that they are false. But that, precisely, is the outrage. If they know that he is not a father of the internet, did not win “the Nobel Prize” of Computing as he claims, has no invention patents, did not invent the connection machine, does not have a single academic publication, and is neither a “doctor” nor a “professor” by any definition of those terms, why did they include him on the list? What makes Mr. Emeagwali “influential,” his ability to deceive Nigerians and line his pockets on the black speechmaking circuit?Nigerians and black people deserve to know who the real Philip Emeagwali is. This will save them from the embarrassment of continuing to celebrate a fraud while real black scientific achievers and pioneers starve for attention and recognition. To correct Nigeria’s scientific and technological lag there is a need for investments — both financial and motivational — in the sciences, engineering, and IT fields. Nigerian youths need inspiration in the quantitative and scientific disciplines, but they should get it from actual, not pretending, black scientific, computing, and engineering heroes, not from phonies like Mr. Emeagwali.Patented Inventions Or The Invention Of Patents?Debunking the many myths of Mr. Emeagwali’s “achievements” is one the easiest things to do on earth if you have a computer with Internet access. Let us start with his claim of possessing 41 (32 by some accounts on some hero-worshipping black websites) patents for various inventions. A simple search at the website of the US Patent and Trade Mark Office (here: http://tarr.uspto.gov/) reveals that Mr. Emeagwali has only one registered patent, for Philip Emeagwali - A Father of the Internet - Biography Supercomputer Computer, his website. He has no other patent listed against his name. It is the same patent that most owners of independent websites apply for to legally protect their proprietary rights over the website and its contents. We can state conclusively then that Mr. Emeagwali has no patented invention of any kind, contrary to his and his supporters’ claim.Specifically, Mr. Emeagwali claims to have invented the Connection Machine (CM-2). This false claim is displayed boldly and shamelessly on Philip Emeagwali - A Father of the Internet - Biography Supercomputer Computer in the section on “inventions” and “discoveries.” Some black websites like this one http://inventors.about.com/od/blackinventors/a/black_historyE.htmcredit Emeagwali with inventing the Hyberball Machine Networks (or the supercomputer). Both claims are demonstrably false. The connection Machine, which is capable of conducting simultaneous calculations using 65,000-processors, was conceived by Daniel Hills and built by Thinking Machine Corporation, which Mr. Hills, along with Sheryl Handler, founded in 1982. This information is widely available on the web. The so-called supercomputer is therefore clearly not the child of Mr. Emeagwali by even the most generous stretch of the imagination.Internet Pioneer?Mr. Emeagwali claims to have used the CM-2 Machine to carry out billions of calculations by connecting over 65,000 processors (computers) around the world. He claims that this was the rudimentary foundation of the Internet. It is on this ground that he has aggrandized to himself the title of “father of the internet.” But this is a barefaced lie at worst and an egregious exaggeration at best. And it is so absurd in its circular logic that it is hilarious. First, as stated earlier, Emeagwali did not invent the Connection Machine on which his “experiment” relied. Second, Emeagwali used more than 65,000 independent processors "around the world" (meaning on the Internet) to do his calculation. This means that the Internet already existed and that he RELIED ON it for his calculations. Unless the Internet he claims to have fathered is different from the Internet that already existed at the time of his experiment (and which we all know as the existing internet today), he COULD NOT have invented the Internet or fathered it. He could not have been using an internet that, by his claim, did not exist until he invented it. As this website WWW FAQs: Was Philip Emeagwali a "father of the Internet?" makes very clear, Emeagwali’s research did not contribute to or help invent any of the known components of what we now know as the internet:Philip Emeagwali did work in supercomputing in the [late] eighties……. But supercomputing and the Internet are very different areas. And Emeagwali did not contribute to even one of the hundreds of Internet standards, or RFCs (Requests For Comments), that were created in the early decades of the Internet—an open process that anyone could participate in. His supercomputing research was completely unrelated to the Internet.Emeagwali’s research was thus irrelevant to the evolution of the internet. Emeagwali did his supercomputing experiment in the late 1980s. By then, the “core standards” and protocols for information and data flow on the Internet already existed. And although, improvements have been made to the template since then, Emeagwali did not make any of those improvements and cannot therefore claim credit for them.Emeagwali's tenuous—and fraudulent—claim to internet fatherhood rests on his assertion that "the Supercomputer is the father of the Internet,” “because both are networks of computers working together.” This, experts agree, is not true, as supercomputing is just one component of the Internet and in fact RELIES ON the rudiments of what we know as the internet to work. So, if anything, the internet concept is the father of supercomputing, not vice versa. But even if we accept Emeagwali’s wrong logic, the fact that he did not invent or pioneer supercomputing means that even on this flawed premise and logic he cannot be considered a father of the internet.Authentic histories of the internet are accessible all over the web. One can be found here: Brief History of the Internet. Many people played leading roles in inventing, improving, and constituting the vast technologies, protocols, and ideas that gave birth to and perfected the Internet. It is interesting that none of them is nearly as vocal in claiming that he is a father of the internet as Mr. Emeagwali, who did not contribute to the invention of the internet in any shape or form and in fact relied on the already existing internet to conduct his research. One of the most significant contributors to and pioneers of the internet is Vinton Cerf, who is today a Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google Inc. Other important figures in the development of the Internet include JCR Licklider, Bob Taylor, Paul Baran, Donald Davies, and Lawrence Roberts. If anyone deserves the title of father of the Internet, it is these people. Yet, none of them craves or has appropriated the title. When interviewed about their contribution to the Internet, they often humbly outline their actual contribution, crediting others with other components and shunning the title or insinuation of having fathered the Internet.The only “history of the internet” source to even recognize Emeagwali as a legitimate computer scientist to be mentioned when chronicling the history of the internet is the book History of the Internet: A Chronology, 1843 to the Present by Christos J. P. Moschovitis, Hilary Poole, Tami Schuyler, Theresa M. Senft. The book was published in 2001. Although Mr. Emeagwali proudly displays the book’s reference to him on his website and claims that the “father of the internet” moniker (which has since been lazily picked up by several media platforms) originated in the book, there is absolutely no such reference in the book. The book’s reference to Emeagwali only states how Emeagwali’s research “effectively stimulate[d] petroleum reserves” by “harnessing the power of parallel computing.” And it is clear from a cursory analysis of the linguistic properties of this specific reference to Emeagwali that Emeagwali himself supplied the material and the claims articulated in it. It is also clear from the reference that it has nothing to do with the internet but is about improving the modeling of oilfields or oil reservoirs. The content and prose are eerily identical to the autobiographical write-ups and claims on Philip Emeagwali - A Father of the Internet - Biography Supercomputer Computer and on black websites that simply lift and republish Emeagwali’s claims and self-written biography.The Nobel Prize Of Computing?Emeagwali’s other claim is that of winning the “Nobel Prize of Computing.” He is, of course, referring to the Gordon Bell Prize, which he won in 1989. Many uninformed observers have since picked up this fraudulent reference, which emanated from Philip Emeagwali - A Father of the Internet - Biography Supercomputer Computer, and given it wings. The truth is that the Gordon Bell Prize does not come close to the Nobel in status, recognition or prize money and to compare the two prizes is to insult the prestige of the Nobel and grossly exaggerate the Gordon Bell’s importance. The Gordon Bell Prize is, properly speaking, an annual competition that young, driven, engineering upstarts — mostly graduate students — enter. Winners are usually those whose research are innovative and on the cutting edge of new processes in the field. So, on that score, winning the Gordon Bell Prize is a reward for doing research work that is important and solves an application problem at the time that the award is given. But let us put the award in perspective and recognize that it is actually a very minor award in the narrow field of supercomputing and in the larger computing and scientific community. Here is why the Gordon Bell Prize, Emeagwali’s only legitimate achievement, is much less than what he has portrayed it as:• The cash award for the prize is a mere $1000. Often, the amount of an award is a good guide to its prestige and significance in the field.• Consider the fact that the most prestigious prize in the field of computing (and yet it cannot even be called the Nobel of Computing without insulting the real Nobel) is the Turing Prize, which carries a cash prize of $100,000.• The Gordon Bell is awarded in the narrow subfield of supercomputing, thereby further thinning the applicant pool and reducing the intensity of the competition.• The prize is further subdivided into several categories. Emeagwali won in one of those categories, the price/performance category. The more prestigious overall Peak Performance category was won by the entry submitted by a team from Mobil and TMC.• It is interesting that apart from Emeagwali no other winner(s) of the Gordon Bell annual prize makes noise about winning it or claims to have won “the Nobel Prize of Computing.” They usually go on to do bigger and better research in the field, the Gordon Bell being just a launch pad for future significant work. The public does not even know the other winners because it is a minor prize even in the field of computing.• Finally, and most importantly, Philip Emeagwali only won the prize in the price/performance category by default. His calculation of 3.1 Gflops was the second fastest speed. The fastest speed belonged to the Mobil/TMC team’s entry, whose calculation, according to the official record of the IEEE, which administers the prize (IEEE Software, May 1990, p. 101), bested Emeagwali’s speed. The speed of the Mobil/TMC Team’s solution to the seismic data processing problem was almost twice that of Emeagwali’s at almost 6Gflops. Similarly, and of more relevance for our purpose here, the Mobil/TMC team’s entry achieved the best speed/cost ratio (price-performance) at 500 Mflops per $1 Million, beating out Emeagwali’s entry, whose speed/cost ration was less than 400 Mflops per $1 Million. In fact the prize in the price/performance category was actually awarded to the Mobil/TMC initially. However, because the Mobil TMC team won also won in the overall Peak Performance category and the IEEE’s prize rule does not allow more than one prize per entry, the Mobil/TMC team forfeited their prize in the price/performance category, sticking with the prize for overall Peak Performance, a more significant category. As a result, Emeagwali’s entry, the second placed entry with the second highest speed/cost ratio, was automatically bumped to first place.For all these reasons, it is the height of self-promotion and delusional exaggeration for Mr. Emeagwali to claim that he won the Nobel Prize of Computing or that the Gordon Bell is regarded as the Nobel of Computing. Nobody except Mr. Emeagwali regards the prize as such.It is noteworthy that both Emeagwali and the Mobile/TMC Team relied on the CM-2 Machine (the Connection Machine) for their calculations, the same machine that Emeagwali falsely claims to have invented!A final point to note here is that the research for which he won the Gordon Bell Prize (by default) has application and relevance only in the narrow area of oil flow reservoir modeling and oil prospecting. His entry for the competition utilized and optimized the capacity of parallel computing, that is, relied on an already existing Internet. Emeagwali’s own website states that he “accessed the supercomputers over the Internet from local workstations.” Neither the research nor the prize had anything to do with the Internet. The Internet was already invented and fairly perfected by then; otherwise he would not be, in his own words, “accessing the supercomputers over the Internet.” This clarification is necessary and important because some of Emeagwali’s supporters and victims tend to assume wrongly that his purported fatherhood of the internet derives from the research for which he won the Gordon Bell Prize. All these facts can be easily accessed here: http://www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions/emeag.html“Dr.” Emeagwali Or Doctored Emeagwali?Emeagwali’s final fraudulent claim is that of being a “doctor” and “professor.” Several years ago, before eagle-eyed Nigerians and Africans decided to scrutinize his eye-popping claims, his website audaciously referred to him as “doctor” and “Professor.” Because of recent exposures of his scam, he no longer refers to himself on his website as “Dr. Emeagwali” or “Professor Emeagwali.” However, in what is typical of the Emeagwali scam, his website is still littered with many media references to “Dr Emeagwali” and “Professor Emeagwali.” These stealthily promoted references then get picked up by unsuspecting black media people who are eager to promote black achievement and excellence. Sometimes, he approaches black websites and organizations, asking them to link to or publish his false claims. In the course of the discussion on the USAfricadialogue forum, Ms. Funmi Okelola , the owner and webmaster of http://cafeafricana.com, revealed that Mr. Emeagwali approached her a few years ago, asking her to help propagate the lie that he is “a father of the internet.” Ms. Okelola, herself an Adjunct Professor of IT, flatly turned down his request, refusing to participate vicariously in his fraud. For good measure, she advised him to seek help for his delusions of grandeur.But many proprietors of black websites and publications have not been as alert to Emeagwali’s antics as Ms. Okelola and have been falling for his scam. In their eagerness to embrace what they believe to be the proud achievements of a “brother,” they have inadvertently donated space and platform to Emeagwali to consolidate and spread his false claims. Because of the virility of the internet, even some non-black websites have picked up these ubiquitous references that are patently false. Here, on this website Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions for instance you will find a clear reference not only to “Dr Emeagwali” but also the following reference in their documentation of his education: “Ph.D., Scientific Computing, University of Michigan, 1993.”He will not correct what is clearly a false reference, preferring to take cover in the deniability of being able to say that it is others, not him, who use these false, unearned titles to refer to him. The reason he will not correct this falsehood is that it emanated from him in the first place; most of the references were picked up from his website in the days before scrutiny spooked him into avoiding such direct self-referencing. The clearest evidence yet of his complicity and culpability in this misrepresentation is that he sits through interviews where the clueless, awed interviewers refer to him as “Doctor Emeagwali” and “Professor Emeagwali” and he does not correct them. There is a particularly revolting video on youtube <Conversations with Emeagwali>(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8244498418903739405#) in which the female interview repeatedly calls him Dr. Emeagwali, obviously assuming and/or reading from her script that he has a PhD. He sits there and nods and smiles through those references without correcting her. Having planted the false biographical information about himself in the first instance, he understandably makes no effort to discourage people from using it or to correct them.The false references to him as “doctor” and “professor” are not the only falsehoods that Emeagwali coyly and deftly promotes; he routinely lets interlocutors repeat the many false claims that are based on his own prolific misrepresentations. On this websitehttp://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa111097a.htm, for instance, the misinformed interviewer, a black woman who is proudly interviewing “a black inventor” for a book she was writing on black inventors, asks him the following question: “You have submitted 41 inventions to the U.S Patent and Trademark Office concerning seven technologies. Can you give us expanded details?” Clearly, the interviewer was repeatedly the false claim on Emeagwali’s website and in his self-written biographical profiles, without realizing that, as we showed at the beginning of this essay, he has no patent for any technology or invention.Here is Mr. Emeagwali’s response to her question: “Inventors are reluctant to provide expanded details of their inventions until they receive full patent protection. The reason is that the Patent and Trademark Office can deny patents to inventors that publicly provide details of their invention.” But the truth is that he has neither registered patents for his non-existent inventions nor a patent-pending status. He has no inventions or technologies to patent! The response itself contains a lie. Contrary to Emeagwali’s insinuation that inventors cannot publicly discuss their work until they are patented or that doing so would jeopardize their patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), inventions and products with “Patent Pending” status are routinely discussed, advertized, and marketed on American television. In fact these public discussions of unpatented inventions always carry the disclaimer that patents are pending, meaning that applications have been made. If public discussion of inventions and technologies were detrimental to patent applications, none of these unpatented and “patent pending” technologies and inventions would be on the American market or be advertized on television. This was Emeagwali seeking to perpetuate the myth that he has several technological inventions that are patented or awaiting patents but avoiding having to mention or discussion the specific fictitious inventions for which he claims to have patents in order to have deniability when checks are made at the USPTO and he is confronted with the truth of his falsehood.Racism Or Laziness?The case of Philip Emeagwali is a cautionary tale on the pitfalls of self-delusion, laziness, and a sense of entitlement. Mr. Emeagwali enrolled in a doctoral program in Civil Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1987. His coursework over, he took the comprehensive examination that qualifies one for candidacy. He failed the exam twice and did not take it a third time. In the meantime, he conducted the research that would later win him the Gordon Bell Prize, a research he began as a class project for one of his graduate courses. In 1991, two years after winning the Gordon Bell by default, he petitioned the Dean of the School of Engineering to be allowed to submit a dissertation (despite not having passed his candidacy exam and therefore not being a doctoral candidate) in a different department — the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His request was curiously granted in what was clearly a sidestepping of standard procedure. Emeagwali submitted the dissertation, basically a rework of his entry for the Gordon Bell competition, on July 24, 1992. A team of internal and external evaluators examined it and found it unworthy of a doctorate and turned it down.Emeagwali then sued the University of Michigan for racial discrimination. The lawsuit was dismissed for lacking merit and also failed on appeal in 1999. The details of Emeagwali’s graduate school records and of the dueling contentions in the lawsuit are all documented herehttp://www.michbar.org/opinions/appeals/1999/102999/5473.htmlin the court record of the Michigan Court of Appeals.A dispassionate analysis of the details, affidavits, and arguments submitted in the lawsuit and in the appeals process reveals the following:• Emeagwali was a fairly brilliant student but he was lazy and would not put in the work necessary to earn his degree.• He had a sense of entitlement, feeling that since he was black and had made it into the University of Michigan, he was entitled to a special treatment and academic favors.• This sense of entitlement escalated after he won the Gordon Bell Prize. He thought that he was entitled to a PhD on the strength of the Gordon Bell competition entry when in fact he was not even a doctoral candidate, having failed his comprehensive examination twice.• Emeagwali was more concerned with parlaying his newfound default Gordon Bell fame into profitable self-promotion than with the serious academic effort required to complete the PhD.• He petitioned to be allowed to submit a dissertation only after he realized that he would not be taken seriously as a researcher and may not be able to find a secure job in research or teaching if he did not possess a PhD.This is a story of how a promising, modestly brilliant graduate student was destroyed by his own hubris, entitlement mentality, and laziness. What Emeagwali failed to earn through hard work and diligence, he has since appropriated to himself by calling himself and getting others to call him “doctor” and “professor.”Emeagwali is not a doctor of whatever kind. He is not a professor. He has not held any research or teaching job in any educational or research institution since he failed to get a doctorate degree at Michigan. He has also not done any new research. Emeagwali has no single publication in any scientific journal. A search of the most comprehensive scientific publication database (which can be done online) yields only a reference to his Masters Degree dissertation.Here we have a man who is unemployed, has no serious standing in the scientific, engineering, or computing communities. Yet he is widely referred to as “a father of the internet,” “an internet pioneer,” “the greatest black scientist that ever lived,” “Bill Gates of Africa,” among other over-the-top and unearned titles. The question to pose is: how did the world get so deceived and why did many reputable people and organizations buy into Emeagwali’s con job? Emeagwali is a very industrious, persistent, and successful scam artist; you have to give him that. Very few intellectual frauds have successfully mainstreamed their false claims as Emeagwali has done.Intellectual Fraud And Its Unwitting ValidatorsEven former president Bill Clinton was suckered by the fraud, famously referring to Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the information age” in his speech to the Nigerian National Assembly in 2000. The Clinton reference has provided cover and alibi for Emeagwali to perfect and spread his false claims. Predictably, Emeagwali’s defenders point to the Clinton reference and to CNN’s and TIME Magazine’s references to him as “a father of the internet” and “the unsung hero” of the internet age respectively. These references are boldly displayed on http://Emeagali.com for the obvious purpose of convincing the uninformed that his claims have been vetted and endorsed by these entities. The problem is that these media organizations sadly endorsed the claims without vetting them. Part of it is sloppiness, but much of it is the result of what black intellectuals who live in the West understand and experience as white liberal pandering, which is itself borne out of white liberal guilt and the fear of the “r” word (racism).Obviously Clinton was pandering to his Nigerian hosts who believed Emeagwali to be a scientific genius and national hero. Clinton, the savvy politician that he is, and a man who perfected white liberal outreach and pandering to black/African peoples, was relying on the image and descriptions of Emeagwali that was already in the black and mainstream press —descriptions that are traceable to Emeagwali's own misrepresentations on his websites. What Emeagwali does is so clever as to ensnare even a skeptical and vigilant observer, especially one that is already inclined to believe or seek out claims of black scientific achievement for whatever reason. As indicated earlier, Emeagwali plants these autobiographical write-ups that are ridden with falsehoods and misrepresentations in unsuspecting black publications. He does this by aggressively pitching these claims to their editors as he tried to do unsuccessfully with Ms. Okelola. Then, fired by liberal guilt and a desire to seem welcoming to black achievement and excellence, the mainstream media like TIME and CNN, lazily pick up these references and descriptions. Emeagwali then links to, disseminates, and publicizes these mainstream press references and descriptions (which are actually based on his own descriptions of himself and his "achievements”), thus perfecting and furthering the fraud. This way, he creates deniability for himself. The deception comes full circle but the cycle continues to repeat itself, populating and repopulating the Internet with Emeagwali’s falsehoods.The sophistication and complexity of the fraud notwithstanding, there is no excuse for reputable organizations like CNN and TIME not to have done a simple due diligence on the false claims of Emeagwali. It is true that at the time that TIME and CNN made the glowing references to Emeagwali, the now widely available refutations of his claims were probably not yet available on the internet. Even so, a basic inquiry from the appropriate quarters would have revealed the truth about the claims on which the references to Emeagwali were based. The two reputable organizations failed to carry out this basic fact checking, an elemental reportorial and investigative duty of journalists. Instead, they relied on Emeagwali’s widely disseminated falsehoods for their stories. The case of TIME is particularly scandalous. The story in which it extols Emeagwali is clearly directly based on Emeagwali’s own autobiographical claims on Philip Emeagwali - A Father of the Internet - Biography Supercomputer Computer. In fact it is a faithful, almost verbatim reproduction of Emeagwali’s self-written profile. It is lazy, sloppy journalism at its worst.There is similarly no excuse for President Clinton’s speech writers not to have done basic checks or asked some of the president’s own appointees and advisers who are engineers and scientists about the true value of Emeagwali’s work. Had they done this relatively simply investigation, they would have realized that being a default winner in one category of a minor supercomputing competition for work that has a specific, limited application in the narrow field of oil reservoir modeling does not qualify one to be called “one of the greatest minds of the information age.”A Self-Replicating FraudWhen challenged, Emeagwali and his supporters can say he is merely repeating and linking to what others call him and say about him and that he does not call himself a father of the internet or a doctor or a professor. But the fraud is a self-replicating one, perpetuating and proliferating itself across both the print and virtual media worlds. Other publications that are searching for black scientific achievers do an internet search and then rely on the previous press descriptions of Emeagwali, which ultimately lead back to the man’s fraudulent biographical claims on his own website. The lazy journalists and Pan-African activists lift these published claims and references (which emanated from the man himself), concluding that they must be established facts if other media outlets had already published them. And on and on it goes. It is a very sophisticated fraud that is aided by the virility of the Internet. This is precisely how even the prestigious Law School Admission Test (LSAT) ended up including a passage about Emeagwali in their test, a passage that is exactly the same as what Emeagwali published on Philip Emeagwali - A Father of the Internet - Biography Supercomputer Computer about himself!! The examiners at the LSAT did not even bother to rewrite the passage. Nor did they bother to check the veracity of the claims therein. It is clear that they were simply interested including a passage about a "black achiever" to fulfill the need for diversity of content and to deflect or avoid accusations from black test takers and other minority groups that the test does not represent or reflect the experiences of black people and is thus biased against them.White liberal patronage of black people can be that shallow and sloppy — and insulting to the very people it purports to promote. It is political correctness and pandering marinated in a political agenda--that of ingratiating white liberal politicians and figures to blacks for political support and multicultural validation. The peak of this phenomenon is Black History Month in February when white liberal organizations and black institutions alike pull out all the stops to have self-promoting “black achievers” like Emeagwali speak to them. That's when they get invited by white liberal and African American organizations to showcase black achievement and innovation! White liberal patronage is a big industry in America. It takes many forms; one of them is what Pius Adesanmi calls the Mercy Industrial Complex (MIC). But the MIC is not as offensive as the false flattery and the silly excuses and defenses that white liberals advance for cuddling black failures and frauds. Hero-seeking black organizations have not helped matters with their patronage of people like Emeagwali. Emeagwali’s deception succeeds so well because of a multiracial coalition of consumers and enablers.Emeagwali is a very clever, self-conscious scam artist. That is however no excuse for the black community to allow itself to be used to actively promote a fraud.Footnotes[1] How Philip Emeagwali Lied His Way To Fame