Is there a difference?

depends on context and intent.

There is a point at which the two merge. For instance, assume that someone believes X based on flimsy evidence. If they know that the evidence supporting X is incomplete, but they present X as a certain and verifiable fact to the public, their statement skirts the boundary between a mistake and a lie. It is possible to lie about your degree of confidence in your conclusions, even if you believe (however tenuously) in the underlying conclusion.

Re: Is there a difference?

Well, let's suppose that a lot of well-informed people in late-15th century Spain were saying that there was no shortcut to India. Furthermore, let's suppose that an international agency commissioned a survey of the New World, and that this survey had uncovered no such shortcut, despite years of looking. And let's also suppose that the documents Columbus relied upon to support his theory of the shortcut were proved to be fabrications, and that the informants that Columbus trusted to provide accurate information about the shortcut, and who assured Columbus that there was indeed a shortcut, were exposed as liars and frauds. And let's say that, despite all of this contrary evidence, Columbus went ahead with his voyage, and that he spent the next year going up and down the coast, looking very hard for a shortcut but finding none. And suppose that, during this time, his first mate confidently assured the Spanish people that "there's a shortcut, we know where it is: it's somewhere between Panama and Cartagena and the silver mines of Potosi." And let's surmise that Columbus, after finding no shortcut, tells Ferdinand and Isabella that the shortcut wasn't really that important anyway, and that the real reason for his voyage was to bring the benefits of Spanish civilization to the benighted, ignorant inhabitants of the New World.

Now, was that a simple mistake of fact or was that a lie?

I'll leave that for others to ponder. I just want to take this opportunity to thank McG for the chance to talk about Christopher Columbus. It's nice to discuss a non-controversial historical subject for a change. But why did you post this in the Politics Forum?

I do not recall anyone knowing the "new world" existed, much less surveyed it.

But, going with your line of thought...

Suppose someone had indeed sailed west and did indeed discover a shortcut, but it was a long time prior to Clumbus's journey. Suppose everybody beleieved that there was a short-cut, so much so in fact they got together and created a mandate for Columbus to find that short cut?

I see your analogy McGentrix, but land is permanent; other things aren't. Old data might be useful to a navigator, but it's a much more tenuous ground for major action in other, more dynamic fields...

Moreover, a mandate to "discover" information is not a mandate to act on premature "discoveries." Of course, I have no idea where you're going here . Just make sure that your analogies aren't misleading or off point in certain critical facts. Finally, what if Columbus, in an effort to obtain a "mandate" took tenuous data to Isabel and presented it as a nearly incontrovertible fact (say a "slam dunk")? Wouldn't Columbus be misrepresenting his confidence in this data? Wouldn't it have been better to just come clean and say "there's a chance, and I'd like to act on that possibility, even though my data is a bit old and sketchy"? Columbus may have very good reasons to want to make the journey, but that doesn't excuse him for making positive assertions based on flimsy facts.

It was posed as a hypothetical.


Why stop there? Let us further suppose that the previously discovered shortcut was closed to shipping over a decade before Columbus's proposed voyage, and that anyone who had devoted any study to the matter concluded that the shortcut no longer existed. Moreover, let us suppose those responsible for issuing the "mandate" did so in the expectation that any voyage would be undertaken only after further deliberations and then only by an international crew, but that Columbus ignored the terms of that mandate and set off on a voyage immediately with a crew composed of only Spaniards (plus a couple of Portuguese thrown in for show).

If everyone believed the shortcut no longer existed, why the need for the new mandate for Columbus to find it?

I suggest you take a closer look at the mandate. You'll find that it doesn't say what you think it says.