Most of us remember the story of how Christopher Columbus went to Ferdinand and Isabella and convinced them to back his voyage of discovery. In elementary school, I was taught that Columbus had watched the ships leaving port "hull down" as they went over the horizon and figured out that the Earth was round. Those that opposed his proposed voyage, so the story goes, all thought the Earth was flat.
Why did they think the Earth was flat? Because their experience told them so. Their view of the world offered no clue otherwise, and their "intuition" told them their world was flat. Columbus, on the other hand, had done his "research" and had concluded that the Earth was round, and that he could get to the east by sailing to the west. The lesson to be learned here, I suppose, is that we shouldn't always test our intuitive sense of things, but should observe and think about what we see and hear.
An excellent lesson to be sure, and left unexamined, there is not reason to believe it isn't true. After all, our experience of the world would lead us to believe it flat as well, but we know that it isn't. Columbus is a national hero. We even have a holiday in October to celebrate his great discovery. Our teachers taught us this story, why should we doubt it?
But there's that preconceived acceptance again. We accept this story of Columbus without questioning it. Unfortunately, the story isn't true.
You see, according to Columbus biographer Samuel Elliot Morrison (Admiral of the Ocean Sea), the scholars in Ferdinand and Isabella's court in 1492 were well aware that the Earth was round. The disagreement was in estimating how far it was to go around to the "indies" in the east by sailing west. Seignior Columbus was trusting to his intuition that he could make the voyage. The scholars had done the math.
As it turns out, Columbus was wrong. Had there not been a continent of two between him and his intended destination, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria would have perished at sea.
All three of the lessons here are important. We may start with an intuitive idea, but we need to seriously consider what we observe; the obvious may not be correct. We should not take the stories told to us by "authorities" as unquestionably true, but should make a determination of their validity based on evidence. Finally, we need to examine our ideas with real measurements before setting out on mission critical voyages.
The more significant the question, the greater the need to examine and evaluate beyond the intuitive.
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