All of us, when in an argument or disagreement, want to be right. It’s not as good an attitude as wanting to be on the side of right, but being right is a natural desire, a common expression of vanity. Sometimes, there is great danger in being right.
When Columbus searched for wealthy patrons to subsidize his attempt to get to China and Japan by sailing West, he went to Portugal. The leading navigators and cartographers were there, working for the nation that had focused its intellectual abilities on directing its sailors around the world.
Columbus laid out his plans. The Portuguese experts discussed them in great detail. They quickly noticed a flaw. “Columbus thinks the world is much smaller than our navigators and astronomers have shown that it is. His theory is sound, but he has greatly underestimated the distance from here to Asia. It is too far to sail from here to Asia without places to obtain water and provisions.”
So, he sought elsewhere for financial support. Spain, recently finished with the liberation of Grenada from the Moslems, was looking for a place to send its suddenly unemployed soldiers. “Let him go.”, they decided. “If, by some miracle, he’s right, we can get some of these armed men onto boats and out of here before they start trouble.”
Columbus soon set sail. As the Portuguese knew, he had grossly underestimated the circumference of the earth, and was much farther from Asia than he thought. But, he did discover endless islands and two entire continents that were unknown. From them, the Spaniards brought home thousands and thousands of tons of silver and gold.
Sometimes, it pays to be wrong about things.
