He must've been an intelligent guy. Or was that meant as a criticism or a warning? [House doesn't care either way. Only hard evidence can sway him from his belief about how the universe works. Everything else is just talk.]

To an extent, sure--most of us have experiential or even innate knowledge of how things work. But say you wanted to fly. It doesn't matter whether it's from one city to another or from the Earth to the moon, you'd need to have specific information about gravity and acceleration and aerodynamics. Otherwise, it would be really short trip.