Do you know what the absolutely best answer you can give someone seeking knowledge which you cannot give them? "I don't know." I seldom hear that answer even on topics which people clearly do not understand or have applicable knowledge of. I had a person try to explain to me the fundamental issues with a certain type of sighting system, sounding really knowledge and educated I asked him a simple question - "How much experience do you have using that system? How many rounds down range have you shot with that system? Force on force? Other types of training maybe?" The response from a confused person - "I've never used it."
If you do not have direct applicable experience on a particular topic, please do everyone, especially yourself a favor and simply respond with "I don't know." because it is vastly better to say you are not knowledgeable about a particular topic rather than waste time talking about something you have absolutely zero first hand applicable experience about. I do not care what you read about once in high school, what documentary you watched, how many times your sister's boyfriend's cousin talked about it, you either have experience with it or you do not. If you do not, say so.
Furthermore, if you have no experience with a particular topic but want to learn about it, you should be completely ecstatic when someone who actually has direct first hand experience tries to explain it to you, because that person is taking their time to do so. It does not matter what it is, it does not matter who the person is, and your personal opinion is irrelevant on the topic as you are not experienced nor knowledgeable and should be silent when those people attempt to educate you. When you decide you think you know better or more, specifically in the context of a theory, you probably do not know anything.
Remember that he more time you spend trying to showoff you deep knowledge of a topic you have no real experience with what you are doing to shunning away people who are trying to educate you if you happen to find yourself in a particular situation where someone is trying to educate you.
It is, of course, your choice to openly listen, take notes and then go on and gain experience for yourself, but if you do not do that, what you are doing is setting yourself up for greater failure than just on that particular topic. You may be ostracizing people who may want to educate you on various other topics, various concepts and other things which will undoubtedly take you longer to realize through first hand experience yourself.
Do not make preconceptions about a topic you do not understand then disregard people's first hand knowledge. You are setting yourself up for the wrong type of failure.