I saw somewhere that she talks about aerodynamics using the common incorrect explanation of lift, not the simple, precise, correct explanation—that lift happens when an object (in this case, a stock car) pushes the air flowing over it downwards, thus producing an equal and opposite push upwards. Is that so? How could a physicist mess up an explanation of lift? Time to sick the aerodynamicists from NASA on her.

That's not true that she uses the incorrect explanation of lift. On pages 99-110 she discusses that very topic and why it is wrong. Don't worry, it's a good book. They don't just hand out Phd's to anyone.

Both Newton's third law and the Bernoulli equation (or Euler Equations) are required to analyze and discuss the concept of aerodynamic lift. Newton's third law is very useful to explain (without analysis) unsteady lifting motions such as a raptor taking off with prey in its talons.

However, quasi-steady lift is best explained by using field equations such as the Euler Equation or RANS equations to calculate the pressure and velocity fields around an airplane wing or albatross (limited flapping) wing at a given free stream velocity. These pressure field calculations are then integrated over the wing surface to obtain lift forces. Such a calculation would be nearly impossible to accomplish by analyzing the deflection of an unknown mass of air downwards as suggested by Associate Editor Bjorn Carey in his reply in the May 2008 issue of Popular Science.

Circulation theory also explains why birds find it advantageous to fly in the upwash just outside the wing tip of an adjacent bird in the formation.

From another PhD in Fluid Mechanics