Idriss Jamil Aberkane (; born May 23, 1986) is a French

public speaker Public speaking, is the practice of delivering speeches to a live audience. Throughout history, public speaking has held significant cultural, religious, and political importance, emphasizing the necessity of effective rhetorical skills. It all ...

and

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

. Known for his writings and lectures on

personal development Personal development or self-improvement consists of activities that develops a person's capabilities and potential, enhance quality of life, and facilitate the realization of dreams and aspirations. Personal development may take place over the ...

, he published a particularly successful essay in 2016, titled ''Free up your mind!''. However, he has been accused of artificially inflating his resume, plagiarizing portions of one of this theses, and of using his three

doctoral A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

diplomas ( Ph.Ds) to talk about sciences that are not in his areas of expertise, including claiming to be a "doctor of neuroscience" and "teacher-researcher". The scientific accuracy of some of his statements and publications was questioned by other researchers. His support for embattled French epidemiologist

Didier Raoult Didier Raoult (; born 13 March 1952) is a retired French physician and microbiologist specialising in infectious diseases. He taught about infectious diseases at the Faculty of Medicine of Aix-Marseille University (AMU), and in 1984, created ...

, and his questioning of the reliability of

COVID-19 vaccine A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Knowledge about the structure and fun ...

s, in particular Pfizer's, has caused him to be classified as an anti-vax conspiracist.

Early life and education

Aberkane's parents taught mathematics at a teachers' college, and as a boy he participated in the Muslim Scouts of France, of which his father was one of the first leaders; he has cited his participation in the scouts as an inspiration for his life's work. Aberkane has obtained three doctorate degrees: one in

management science Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

from

Paris Saclay Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, one in

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

from

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...

, and one in

diplomacy Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of State (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international syste ...

from Centre d'Études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques. University officials have since requested revocation of his management science PhD due to extensive plagiarism. His degree in diplomacy is not recognized by France. He became known in France for his lectures and essays about

neurosciences Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...

gamification Gamification is the process of enhancing systems, services, organisations and activities through the integration of game design elements and principles in non-game contexts. The goal is to increase user engagement, motivation, competition and ...

and their applications in education and business. A profile in the French newspaper ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

'' described his advocacy for these applications as "a bit North American, where science, popularization, morality, personal narrative and advice intertwine".

Criticisms

Aberkane has been criticized for his lack of rigor and fabricating some parts of his resume. He has since published a copy of all his diplomas (including his three doctoral diplomas) on his personal website. For social psychology and neurosciences researcher Sebastian Dieguez, ''Free up your Mind'' is "an uninterrupted succession of isolated facts, of pointless detours, anecdotes and personal opinions, elementary mistakes, debunked "theories", truisms, hyperboles and aphorisms, which do not make for good science education." Aberkane claims to have solved the

Collatz conjecture The Collatz conjecture is one of the most famous List of unsolved problems in mathematics, unsolved problems in mathematics. The conjecture asks whether repeating two simple arithmetic operations will eventually transform every positive integer ...

, but mathematicians who have studied his papers strongly disagree, pointing to major mistakes in the works and noting they were published in "predatory journals" by

MDPI MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a publisher of open-access scientific journals. It publishes over 390 peer-reviewed, open-access journals. MDPI is among the largest publishers in the world in terms of journal article o ...

. Discussing Aberkane's works, Fabien Durand, a professor of mathematics at Université de Picardie Jules-Verne and the president of the

French Mathematical Society French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

, considers that he made several mistakes and that "most of the proofs are at the level of a high-school or first-year college student".

Works

* * *

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aberkane, Idriss 1986 births Living people 21st-century French non-fiction writers French science communicators