Yup, you can't (consistently) bullshit you way out of tasks that involve you working on things that exist in the physical world.
My buddy Mike is a diesel mechanic for a large forestry company in our area.
If I have any kind engine trouble (car, lawnmower, diesel truck, woodchipper... literally anything with an engine) I call Mike and run it by him to get his .02
Doesn't matter that he doesn't work on cars on an everyday basis, dude understands engines. Engine is an engine. He understands how engines work at a fundamental level, and because of that he understands how they break and the process to go thru to determine that happened and how to fix it.
My buddy Josh on the other hand? He works for Northwestern Mutual as a financial advisor... he's... dumb (professionally... socially he's a very pleasant and nice dude, we get along fine). Dude literally just types keystrokes into his companies model and regurgitates the information to his clients... he doesn't even understand half the shit he is saying because I have a degree in financial planning, I manage my own investments and I understand them way more at a fundamental level than he does (because I don't work off a model that a company built for me). I've given up on even trying to have professional discussions with him because he'll just kind of laugh and change the subject because it's clear he doesn't understand what he is selling. Nice guy though, and I'm sure his clients do fine... it's because he's trusting the model to do the work for him though. He's a complete fraud professionally.
That's not to say that all people who work in theory/feels based fields are dummies. My buddy Nate is an agricultural forecaster for commodities traders. He's a very smart dude and he can explain the models he works with that predict future prices inside and out and I'll just sit there with my jaw open like, "huh? I followed 3 out of every 5 words you said"... but, even though he's really smart... he's also wrong a decent amount of the time because commodity prices aren't like engines... they aren't a physical thing that sits there that you can work on as they remain in place. There's millions of different things that can impact future prices and some of them are impossible to predict (like criminal activity or catastrophic natural disaster). I find it interesting when I ask him what the price of soybeans will be and he gives me his prediction... but even he will say, "don't bet your mortgage on it though.. there's only so much I can know for certain".
