The world is non-linear. But there is a further point of greater importance. Intuition and spontaneous thought are responsible for much of progress and many good decisions. Intuition is not a substitute for rigour and hard work. However, academics should not deride practitioners who say intuition is important.
Much information is contained in our intuition.
Very many advanced tasks are carried out without formal rationalisation. There is nothing wrong with intuition in investment. It may be successful in harnessing a lot of knowledge and understanding. Those who are still not convinced about the importance of intuition should go back to Friedman's original analogy with the pool player described in his work on modelling people's decisions using utility theory. Friedman mentioned that pool was a game which could be rationalised in terms of complex mechanics.