What do most people here do? Academy first and hope you can get Taoism or is the Academy 2nd priority?
Note that I only play on low difficulty levels. Warlord currently, as I'm still learning the game.
Do you already "own" a religion? If not, do you want to?
Also, do you have one city that outputs a lot of science? Use the F1 city overview screen to find out, sorting the list according to science output. If you have a good science city, you should probably found an Academy there.
Generally, I tend to go for long-term rewards, i.e. I'll practically never use Great Persons to get techs, because I can invent any tech in 3-12 turns (unless I have too many cities and don't have Code of Laws yet to build Courhouses), and likewise I don't believe I've ever used a Great Engineer to complete a National or Great Wonder (except once to try it out), although I might actually do that if I believe I'm in a Wonder race with one of the AI civs.
Still, my point is that Great Persons are best "invested" into long-term return, such as becoming a Great Specialist in a city, or founding an Academy or Scotland Yard, or even starting or extending a Golden Age.
More skilled players may turn out to disagree, though.