This is the key question of rationality. How can we believe what is true?

I've never read Taubes, but I share similar ideas. How did I arrive at my beliefs?

• I read a lot. I try and judge the caliber of the writer. Of course, there are idiots on both sides of every argument, but I often find that one side has a preponderance of open minded, rational, reasonable supporters. Intuitively, when the evidence isn't on your side you tend to resort to less savory tactics to win. I've found a lot of very undogmatic, well spoken people on Taube's general side of the fence.
• I find many of the paleo arguments convincing (although not as convincing as most people in the paleo community).
• I've experimented heavily with my own diet. I simply select the diet that makes me feel best. I make small tweaks constantly and big tweaks rarely (sort of a simulated annealing type algorithm). I keep the tweaks that make me feel better. My current diet would pass for paleo, although it wouldn't be typical.

Ultimately, I still don't have incredibly high confidence that I'm right. I'd love to see some reform in the nutritional science community. I'd love to see more studies. I'd love self experimentation to become the norm, so that we could all share experiences and have a reason to encourage scientists to do more diverse studies.