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PipFoweraker comments on In Defence of Simple Ideas That Explain Everything But Are Wrong - Less Wrong Discussion
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Following simple ideas or explanations that are mostly right will still give me good outcomes in a plurality of iterations.
I don't have infinite time to carefully consider those ideas. Being a standardly incompetent human at many things, my ability to discern truthiness by looking is subject to error.
What options do I have for differentiating between simple explanations that are correct and simple explanations that are only mostly correct, and then figuring out whether the latter are worth investigating for corner-casery / quackery / etc?
Well, pretty much by definition you'll do well following the mostly correct ideas. And when things go wrong, you'll have produced exactly the sort of surprise that (gets physicists/should get anyone who calls themselves a scientist) to say 'Oooh, that's interesting'.
So if you're lazy, go with the obvious (the world is flat), and only trouble yourself to think if you're (a) curious or (b) confounded by your bad anticipations.
Generally speaking 'What the wise ones say is (likely) true' is not a bad heuristic if you don't have the time or reason to be interested.