Dr. Anilir's official positions

-- Update:  One of us asked the University of Tokyo about exact nature of Dr. Anilir's employment status: we obtained the confirmation that his "Jokyo" position is permanent one, not on a termed contract. In addition, it seems that official English title for "Jokyo" is "Assistant Professor", according to the policy of School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo.


A few readers from Turkey questioned about precise nature of Dr. Anilir's position.

What we confirmed is as follows:

• In March 2003, he obtained Ph. D. in Engineering from the University of Tokyo.
• After that, in Academic Year 2003, he was a "Space and Astronautical Project Research Staff" at ISAS (research division of JAXA).
• There is no record of Dr. Anilir's exact position for Academic Year 2004. However, it is likely that he continued his "Project Research Staff" position in 2004 as well.
• Since Academic Year 2005, he is an Assistant Professor at Department of Architechture, Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. No official affiliation with ISAS can be found since then.

In Japan, Academic Year starts in April (for example, Academic Year 2003 is from April 2003 to March 2004).

NOTE: Most of the links in this posting refer to documents in Japanese. Maybe they are not very useful for non-Japanese readers, but they are provided so that anyone can verify in principle.

I do not know what the "Project Research Staff" means at ISAS, but it usually implies an entry-level research position funded by some project money. Namely, it is not a regular (permanent) faculty or staff member of ISAS (JAXA). In fact, he does not appear in the "List of Researchers" in the ISAS annual report. This does not mean he was not at ISAS, but he was not part of the regular faculty/staff. His position was perhaps a good start for a fresh Ph. D., but looks nothing exceptional. In the annual report of ISAS for 2003, his name appears in the "Research Activity" section with the above title (and in the Publications and Presentations section.) In the annual report of ISAS for 2004, his name appears only in the Publications and Presentations section; there is no clear indication of his title. His name still does not appear on the "List of Researchers", it seems that he was not a regular faculty/staff in 2004 and in any academic year until 2007. His name is not found also in the current list of faculties at ISAS.

In any case, there is no evidence that Dr. Anilir was a "Director" of any Department at ISAS.

Dr. Anilir obtained the position "Joshu" at the University of Tokyo in 2005. The literal English translation of "Joshu" is "Assistant", maybe similar to Dozent in German system. However, the actual job was often much more independent than "Assistant", strongly depending on each place. Standard English translation was perhaps "Research Associate", but some people used "Assistant Professor " for "Joshu". "Joshu" was a part of faculty but usually they did not lecture regular class. In Science Departments, their job is often to take care of student experiment session. Since Academic Year 2007, Japanese Universities are regulated by a new law and the title of the job was changed to "Jokyo". Dr. Anilir also was transferred to "Jokyo" position. According to the new law, "Jokyo" is more like an independent faculty and closer to "Assistant Professor". In many places, the reality of the job did not change very much, however, before and after the new law. One indication of the tradition is that his group is still called as "Matsumura-Fujita Lab" (because of Professor Matsumura and Associate Professor Fujita in the group, without referring to Dr. Anilir). In any case, it would be fair to say that Dr. Anilir has been enjoying much of academic(??) freedom before and after 2007, without much pressure to "assist" his Professor.

For the English translation of "Jokyo", "Research Associate" is still popular but "Assistant Professor" is also used (and is closer to the spirit of the new law.) I think each University or Department has some policy on the translation. I do not know the policy of his Department, but probably it is legitimate for him to use the title of Assistant Professor, in English. However, there seems no justification for his frequent use of the title "Associate Professor" (see for example the slide in the photo from his talk in Korea.)

The difference between "Assistant Professor" and "Associate Professor", however, might look a negligible problem after seeing grandiose claims found in former Turkish Wikipedia article.......

More from Kenchiku-Zasshi

Continuation from the previous post:

Prof. Taro Igarashi, an Associate Professor at Department of Architecture and Building Science, Tohoku University, and the Editor-in-Chief of Kenchiku-Zasshi (a journal published by Architectural Institute of Japan) started his own twitter.

He tweets

"If I am still on the editorial board, I would like to publish an urgent special article on 'why the Serkan affair has happened?' "

"Concerning publication of the article featuring Serkan in the October issue: should we comment something in December issue? I am contacting relevant people. Will the official announcement from School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, be made before the deadline for the issue? It's a battle against time."

Again, I am quite impressed and appreciate his openness about the problem, and that he is treating it seriously.

(Note: Family names, not given names, are usually used in Japan outside family. However, Dr. Anilir mostly refers himself as "Serkan", so he is known as "Serkan" or "Mr. Serkan" in Japan.)

Under investigation? (remarks added)

Breaking News------

Dr. Shunsuke Kurakata, a well-known scholar on architectural history, said in his tweet (at 2:51AM Oct 27th)

"The person is now under official questioning. School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo will soon make an official announcement. It seems that the person is shocked."

Additional Remarks:

It appears that Dr. Kurakata became aware of the questions surrounding Dr. Anilir, only very recently on Oct 25th. After that, he often tweets about Dr. Anilir. Dr. Kurakata is on the editorial board of Kenchiku-Zasshi (Journal of Architecture and Building Science), a journal mostly in Japanese language, published by Architectural Institute of Japan (Society of Architects and Architectural Scholars).

As an interesting coincidence, we learned that the current issue of Kenchiku-Zasshi includes an article featuring Dr. Anilir as an "Intelligent navigator, who opens up the future". Dr. Kurakata quotes the Editor-in-Chief of the journal saying "This is a human version of Sokal Affair!".

While they might have to reflect seriously on their editorial policy, we appreciate the openness of Dr. Kurakata and his colleagues.

Canceled!

Dr. Serkan Anilir was invited to speak at "TEDx Taipei" in Taiwan, on October 17th. His name was on the program until a few days before the event. As always, he was introduced as an "Astronaut Candidate". However, mysteriously, his trace cannot be found anywhere in the final program.

He was also invited to speak at a Symposium in Sendai, Japan, organized by Miyagi University on November 5th, together with a famous architect Mr. Kitagawara. Again, he was introduced as an "Astronaut Candidate", and he was supposed to speak about "environment of earth, viewed from the space." However, we just learned that apparently his name is now removed from the program - by strikeouts! It seems that there was more mercy in Taiwan.

The reason of the cancellation is not known :-) We can just tell you that, apparently quite a few people alerted the organizers of something.......

How to send an accusation, in the 21st Century

Friends, I am sorry for not posting a new entry for a week. Did you think that I was running out of new materials? It is in fact quite the opposite: I am overwhelmed by too many materials! Hopefully I will be able to cover them, one by one.

Meanwhile, there were some developments in Japan. A nice guy :-) finally sent out an official inquiry to the University of Tokyo, concerning Dr. Anilir's use of research funding. There is a dedicated address (operated by an independent office), in order to receive accusation on possible misuse of research funds at the University of Tokyo. Accusations is not a new business, but the new aspect this time is that he made the letter public, along with the postal tracking code, on the internet. Anyone could track the delivery of the letter :-) [The letter was delivered to the office, and then already forwarded to the University.] Did anybody foresee such a use of the internet?

Want to see the photo of the package? also this one?

Plagiarism in 11 dimensions

Dr. Anilir claims he is a cosmologist who studied "11 dimensional theory of the universe". In his book "Space Elevator", he tries to explain his "theory" to the readers. Because it is a book for general public, he does not attempt to explain scientific details. (It is certainly understandable. However, we do not find any serious scientific paper on cosmology by him.) Instead, he shows several nice-looking figures to illustrate his "theory".

However, unfortunately, many of them seem to belong to other authors.

In page 66 of "Space Elevator", Dr. Anilir presents a figure with the caption "'Anilir model of the universe' from the viewpoint of the newly created concept of 'outside the universe'".
However, the identically-looking figure can be found at the web page of Dr. Schombert at University of Orgeon : http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/lectures/cosmo_101.html See also http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/copyright.html
The original figure of the curved surface seems to be (shown above, the figure in black and white)
William P. Thurston and Jeffrey R. Weeks. The Mathematics of Three-dimensional Manifolds. Scientific American, pages 108--120, July 1984.


Dr. Anilir is even selling "11-dimensional universe T-shirts": http://bearing.ws/
The web site claims "Let's start traveling another dimension, wearing the shape of the universe nobody has seen before." Sorry, I am afraid that the shape was seen before....

Likewise, he presents a strange-looking figure in page 65, with the caption "Model of the '11-dimensional theory of the universe' submitted to a physics journal of Cambridge University. A new concept going beyond the standard theory in cosmology was proposed."

Curiously, however, the same figure appears to illustrate "4-dimensional house" in the web article featuring Dr. Anilir: http://magazine.moonlinx.jp/sp/000490.html Apparently Dr. Anilir himself is rather confused. Is it 11-dimensional or 4-dimensional?

In fact, again, we can find the identical figure at

http://ucdarnet.org/gallery/novak-legrady.php
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/3764362944

In page 71, he again shows a beautiful picture with the caption "'Outside the universe' captured by 11-dimensional point of view. Looking from 'outside the universe', there exist various universes with different laws from the environment in the earth. The universe is kept by the balance of each." (Sorry if this does not sound meaningful; I tried to translate what the original Japanese caption says.)

Now, we are not so much surprised when we find the identically-looking figure elsewhere:

http://az.theforceisstrong.co.uk/entranced/graphics.php (second of the figures at the top)
(A bigger figure, shown above, was salvaged from the internet archive)

So, what about Dr. Anilir's "11-dimensional theory of the universe"? We don't find any scientific paper of him on the subject, and several figures which are supposed to represent the theory are apparently taken from works of other people.....

SERKAN College

A reader from Turkey asked about "SERKAN College" - what is it?

http://serkancollege.jp/ (content is in Japanese)

In short, it is not really a college or university. It has no official status as an educational institution and does not grant any degree. However, of course, people attending the "SERKAN College" are well aware of that and there should be no misunderstanding among the participants about this point.

"SERKAN College" is in fact an opportunity to attend a series of lectures (6 lectures of 2 hours each), given approximately once every two months, by Dr. Anilir. Someone has made the arrangement and taken the task of organization. You have to pay 10,000 Japanese Yen (about US$ 110 as of writing this) to attend each lecture, so 60,000 Yen in total to attend the entire series. They do not have their own building but are renting some lecture rooms. "SERKAN College" has been offered in three cities: Tokyo, Osaka, and Shizuoka. In Tokyo, they write that the capacity is 80 people and it was filled quickly.

So it is not a college in usual sense at all. However, it is remarkable that quite a few people are willing to pay 10,000 Yen each time (and spend their precious time) to attend Dr. Anilir's lectures. And their purpose is not to obtain any degree or qualification; they are motivated by genuine interest in his lectures. This certainly underwrites his talking skill. On the other hand, as always, he is introduced as "cosmologist" "astronaut candidate" and so on, at "SERKAN College". And he is supposed to talk, for example, about cosmology as a "cosmologist". Most attendants apparently believe in those "experiences" and "qualifications" of Dr. Anilir. What a shock for them, if they learn many of the claims might not be true?