(Replying to your edit) Studying clouds may not be a productive way to explore physics, but it is absolutely a productive way to explore clouds! Such study may

(Replying to your edit) Studying clouds may not be a productive way to explore physics, but it is absolutely a productive way to explore clouds! Such study may very well be informed by physics, but the study of clouds (and related phenomena) is a field in its own right. All of that is to say that I don’t find statements like “X is just <some underpinning of X>” to be particularly consequential, even if such a statement is true. The higher-level phenomenon is still worthy of study in its own right.