Originally Posted by DArtagnan
there's a common misconception that more reading must mean a closer relationship with the truth.

It's called hermeneutic knowledge and those who learned it are often closer to the truth. The reason is that they apply logic within a greater bulk of data.

Most academics have learned throughout their education how wrong they have been in their past and thus that they can be wrong now. So I do not speak about astronomy, geology, chemistry or any other field I know little about, nor would I dream about trying to tell an expert in those fields that they might be wrong to protect my own preconceived conclusions.