[eloisius]

> Couldn't you compare that to deciding between colleges? They all presumably will teach you information that is true

Not even close. No one expects their college to impart infallible, ultimate, eternal truth. You expect to be trained in useful theories and practices, and for them to become outdated in due time. Academic disagreements are all part of the dynamic, living, changing reality of academic knowledge. Not so for final truths of what’s right and wrong, true and false.

Maybe that’s why fundamentalists make such lousy arguments in defense of creationism: “science is wrong a lot of the time so how can you trust it?” They’re evaluating academic knowledge through the lens of ultimate truth.