Theories in general can be useful even when they're entirely wrong. There are entire fields dedicated to this (with or without the practitioners' knowledge of this fact), in fact most "high level" subjects have to be theoretically false because to be theoretically correct is just analytically and/or computationally impossible. I would put forward economics and social science in general as examples of this.
Here's an interesting but very old paper - two theories of Heat Control.
It discusses mental models of home heating systems (thermostats) non-experts use.
These models tend to be extremely wrong from theoretical perspective, but surprisingly useful in practice.
The findings are applicable to a much wider range of subjects than just thermostats, and have certain epistemological significance, especially with regard to compartmentalization.