Expert opinion versus truth

Someone,  the counsel for MACC,  mentioned at the TBH inquest that the Thai pathologist’s Thai degree is not recognised in Malaysia, thus implying that she was substandard.

Thailand had a number of good universities, maybe not in the league of Harvard or Yale, but certainly as good as any in Asia.

I remember in 1970 when I was a form 6  student and our interact club in school organised a trip to Thailand, under the sponsorship of Rotary clubs of both Penang and Bangkok. . We stayed at the then mayor ‘s house, a palatial building which until today was still very vivid in my mind. We were taken to various places , including universities such as Thammasat and Chulalongkorn . At that time, Malaysia had only one university but Thai had already several, and both the above mentioned universities were so impressive to us sixth formers.  The students spoke English too, with an accent different from us, but we could still understand each other and communicate.

Even today, some of the Thai universities are ranked high in Asia.  According to this website, Asian university ranking top 200 , the top ranked  Thai university, Mahidol University,  was ranked at No. 28 in Asia, whereas the best ranked university from Malaysia, University of Malaya, was ranked No. 42, just slightly ahead of second ranked Thai university,  Chulalongkorn. mahidol was also the best ranked outside China (Including Hong Kong), Japan, Singapore and South korea.

Of course, ranking per se may not mean anything except that they have attained certain reputation and certain acceptable standard, but it does serve as a guide as to where their education standard stands in the world. It is certainly not below Malaysia, even though it cannot compare with Hong Kong or Singapore, or Japan..

Malaysians must stop being the proverbial frog in the well.. They must not think that Malaysia is better than others.. We were better than most in Asia in the 60s, 70s; our economy were a few times that of South Korea in the 60s, by early 80s they had caught up, by now they are about 4 times bigger than ours. Our Univeristi Malaya was on par with University of Singapore and University of Hong Kong, which have grown to become world renown centres of learning while we have slided down the ladder so much that they are way ahead of MU now.

Malaysians must not think that we are the centre of the world. In fact, most people in the West did not know where was Malaysia in the 80s. When you travelled overseas then, and when you told people you were from Malaysia, they would inevitably ask whether you were from Singapore..  Credit must be given to The Old Horse for putting Malaysia in the world map, by lashing out like a mad dog on the west, so much so that people began to notice malaysia..Of course the money spent on mega projects like Twin Towers, dropping Proton cars in North poles, hosting Formula One race  etc etc attracted attention of the world. But these name recognition came at hefty expenses of the people’s purse..

The point i was driving at was that the Thai pathologist talked sense, and since she came to give a professional opinion, we should have respected her opinion and not try to put her down. Even if we do not agree with her, we can always get some other professionals to come and offer their professional opinion instead of trying to imply that she is substandard. An act which i think is very ungentlemanly.  Offering an opinion is the professional’s way of telling the most probable things that could have occurred , based on the belief and experience of  that professional; an opinion is just an opinion.. It is up to the Judge to decide which opinion is most likely to be  near the truth, taking into account the logic, the scientific evidence and the convincibility of the expert witness..