This is the car analogy again, and my point was that the car analogy fails. Unless, that is, you also think that the ability to parrot back the sentence "light is a wave" is the legitimate goal of education in physics.

I'm sorry, but this is just a total non-sequitir. Parroting back "light is a wave" without having some idea of what this predicts is not useful. Being able to make use of a computer to do basic statistical analysis which makes predictions about the real world is useful, whether or not you can compute the underlying integrals. There are skills which are useful to have in and of themselves, without fully understanding how the underlying mechanisms work, and I think it quite likely that basic statistical analysis is one of them.

On the other hand, I think we basically agree that Paul Graham's view of compulsory education as essentially a giant creche to keep kids busy while their parents go to work is roughly accurate, so this really is a discussion abot what colour we should paint the bikeshed.