> For instance, I recall sitting next to a table of 9/11-truthers meeting up at a coffee shop. Their discussions kept circling back to the sheer implausibility

> For instance, I recall sitting next to a table of 9/11-truthers meeting up at a coffee shop. Their discussions kept circling back to the sheer implausibility of a fire causing structural beams to buckle. People don't have intuition for jet-fuel-hot fires; nor skyscraper-high gravitational potential energy. They might, if they think for a few minutes about how metalworking works. > I'd like to hope that at least problem 2) could be ameliorated if good laboratory-based educational experiences were widespread enough I think a lot of this comes from people being alienated from working with the physical world. Blacksmiths probably have extremely accurate everyday intuitions about how metal behaves under extreme heat.