Illusion of explanatory depth

Biological Parallel

Crows solve multi-step tool-use problems through learned behavioral sequences, yet experiments show they cannot generalize these solutions to slightly modified scenarios—they have procedural knowledge without causal understanding. The bird 'knows how' to extract food with the stick but doesn't understand the mechanical principles underlying the technique. This illusion of understanding is widespread in nature: organisms evolve effective heuristics that work reliably in their environment without requiring—or possessing—accurate mental models of why they work.