[camdenreslink]

If you can't trust a teacher or a textbook, then you are in big trouble. Especially if it is a brand new subject to yourself where you don't have an intuition about what is correct/incorrect. Part of a teacher/student relationship is obviously trust.

[danielmarkbruce]

No, you aren't. You can listen to ideas and think about them and attribute them to the sources and come to (or not) your own conclusions.

The reason it's such a bad idea to "trust" the way you are suggesting is that many fields are quackery. Do you trust that fancy textbook and sophisticated sounding professor from first year macroeconomics?