Comment by brudgers
8 hours ago
From C the first six stacked fifths give C Lydian, not C major. (You get an F#, the 5th of B as the seventh pitch, not F the 5th of Bb).
You don’t get the perfect fourth until you go all the way around the circle of fifths.
You cannot stack perfect fifths and get a major scale.
I was being sloppy and should have said diatonic scale.
Sloppiness is why music theory is not scientific.
You can’t get to a scientific rationalization of the primacy of the major scale without it.