"Scientific consensus" is easily gamed by any authority with enough power to influence the scientific community. In the crudest version of this, any scientists

"Scientific consensus" is easily gamed by any authority with enough power to influence the scientific community. In the crudest version of this, any scientists who publicly disagree with the "consensus" are thrown into gulag. In more refined versions, they are excluded or expelled from the field, sometimes by activist mobs. The problem with the more refined version is that it's intentionally difficult to distinguish honest and qualified dissidents from kooks unless you know enough about the actual science. Consensus is a social and political phenomenon, not a scientific one.