Fool’s gold or errand?
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been under attack from the media, with suggestions that she is does not hold a doctoral degree.
On Aug. 29, a Storm Media report that quoted on-site research by Hwan C. Lin (林環牆), a professor at University North Carolina Charlotte, went so far as to suggest that some people at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) have been covering for Tsai.
That is a serious accusation. For that theory to hold, it would mean that LSE was her accomplice.
As the reports imply fraud, the evidence threshold should be a criminal one: “beyond reasonable doubt.” As they are bringing down the LSE, the threshold could conceivably become “way beyond reasonable doubt.”
Maybe I should be just happy to entertain the possibility that the government might have such far-reaching, albeit improper, influence on a prestigious institution in the UK, even as coconut republics are severing diplomatic ties with us.
With coconuts dropping all over the place, we should probably pin our diplomatic future on the first world, which could be a new frontier for diplomatic expeditions.
Following in Lin’s footsteps, academic Hsu Yung-tai (徐永泰), who holds a doctorate in economic history from the University of Oxford, visited the LSE library and did field research, wrapping up his findings in three articles in the World Journal.
Some of his comments mix up two things: whether Tsai’s thesis is genuine and whether it is good research. These two divisions at times contradict each other.
Given that the time frame is short, a wise strategy would be to focus on one central mission, ie, her thesis could be a fraud. Otherwise, the whole thing could crash.
When Hsu criticized the spelling and format of the thesis, implying that it is not of good academic quality, I believe he probably stepped over the line that divides these two, quite different, missions.
Hsu could also be helping Tsai to prove her case. A genuine work, rather than a fabricated one, is more likely to have technical errors. If the whole thing is well planned and executed in anticipation of scrutiny, the loopholes would be closed. Maybe Tsai should write him a thank you note.
Tsai’s thesis could have been missing from the LSE library for some time.
However, when the accusers observe any objective fact, they tend to posit hypotheses that are unfavorable to her, while ignoring other possible explanations. For example, the once-missing thesis could be due to administrative error, or a ploy.
Is Tsai’s thesis fool’s gold? So far, I have not seen solid evidence to justify such a claim. Given the high evidence threshold of proving their case, the mix up of not-so-related purposes when doing research, and the predominant focus on hypotheses that are unfavorable to Tsai, the accusers are probably on a fool’s errand.
Lai Ping-yen
Changhua County
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