Sources of knowledge

I think maybe we can imagine four ways of obtaining knowledge.  First is to be born with it (evolution supplying us or something like that.  Problem is evolution is only interested in propagating our genes so the information we are born with may have survival value but not much else, and to a large extent this will be things we know but don't know we know.

Then there is standard deduction -- starting with things we already know and deducing further knowledge from it.  The problems here are well known -- the logic may be wrong or the things we "already know" may be wrong.

Then there is induction.  If we see something happen over and over with no counter-examples, we infer that it is a rule of the universe.  Of course this is what science does, but we all do it too.  It has the standard problem that it may be we just haven't yet found the counter-examples.  It is collections of such rules about a related subject that scientists call "theory."

Finally there is the way most of us get our knowledge -- by getting it from an authority on the subject.  Experts know more than we do so when we want to know something we go to them.  I think in this general category there is also getting special revelations from supernatural beings or from ancient writings.  This makes clear the problem with this method of learning -- we have to chose our experts carefully.