>I took it with the best of my knowledge and abilities.

You would be really surprised at how much of one's knowledge sits on assumptions and believes that are not well founded. It is like how grownups are sometimes stumped by the questions of a curious kid, which make it clear that somethings they thought they knew, wasn't so.

This was my experience, and like most people, I used to trust authorities and scientists, and "studies". This is the position where we all start, and diverge from it as we become more aware about the politics involved and how the incentives are aligned, how powerful media, how research is funded and can be flawed, how peer review "appear to work" when in-fact it does not in practice etc, all of which are further confirmed by historical observations.