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The problem here seems to be that "lie" is a loaded term.

Understanding is a point somewhere between an absolute falsehood and the an absolute detailed truth. These two can be hard to define for some subjects but nevertheless.

People who don't have the mental capacity or knowledge to understand the complete truth can still benefit from a partial understanding of what's going on and that's what this is talking about.

I think it's similar to how programmers use libraries to hide abstractions. We don't need to know the details of what's going on at the lower levels of our stack to be useful even though we're operating with some "false" notions of what's happening under the hood.



"All models are wrong; some models are useful."


I was taught that computer science is the study of abstractions. In my opinion, an abstraction is a kind of story, and storytelling is the most powerful tool that human beings have had at their disposal.


Yes. So, imagining education as progressively peeling off layers of abstraction is closer to the truth than "lie to children".




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