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GabrielDuquette comments on Great Explanations - Less Wrong
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A good understanding of evolution can be had without any math, unlike physics. There is no math in The Origin of Species, but it's impossible to rewrite any major work of physics since Galileo without math while preserving its essential points.
In any case, what exactly are these more accurate predictions about the world that pop-physics enables you to make? I would be very curious to hear some examples.
My comment about fake explanations applies to any reasonable definition of "explanation." In fact, the points from the "Fake Explanations" article apply perfectly here. If the material from some prominent pop-science book were rearranged into something written in a similar style but in fact completely wrong and nonsensical and signed by an equally high-status author, how many readers of these books would realize that something's wrong?
Typically, when someone's car breaks, they don't bring it to church, they bring it to a mechanic. In the distant past, people probably brought the equivalent of their cars (when broken) to the equivalent of church. This is progress. I could be wrong, but I think Luke wants more of this, in more domains. I personally think this is less a question of the right explanation, and more a question of daily necessity. If you need physics every day, you'll have fewer wrong ideas about it. But who needs physics every day? Almost no one.
(And yes, some people probably still bring their broken cars to church.)
EDIT: Not everybody wants to be or has the talent to be a "mechanic," but that doesn't matter. What matters is that people associate "broken car" either with "person who can fix broken car" or "reliable knowledge about how cars work" instead of "sky father."