I don't mean to go off on a tangent as that subject has been beat to death but as a pilot who was taught incorrectly by none other than the DOD and FAA , I think it is worth mentioning that there were and are lots of pretty successful pilots who don't know how lift is generated.
Gary, for that matter, one of my professors was talking about how some senior aerodynamicist at Lockheed got lift generation wrong. This was quite a few years ago, but still even the experts aren't always right.
-Dan Nelson