Both Bart and John do make a point with a degree of truth.
From a photographic perspective of course one can leave the camera on auto everything but good luck getting worthwhile images.
In many other endevours like driving, automatics may be very usable in general situations, however, in the real world our jobs revolve around problem solving and the reason there is a problem is the that 'automatic' solution has not worked.
Much, perhaps not all though, of the problem solving needs a knowledge of mathematics.
From an educators perspective almost every nation in the world is trying as hard as they can to make mathematics and scientific disciples a priority in primary and secondary education in order to facilitate tertiary education that needs that kind of knowledge and understanding.
None of my tertiary education (biological sciences and medicine) directly prepared me for rigors of the mathematics, physics, and electronics required for photography but I have had no issues understanding the minutiae when required.
BTW the boys that ploughed the airliner short of the runway the other day flying arguably the most technologically advanced airliner in the world today found out that 'auto' everything didn't work for them either.
Tony Jay