Consensus is playing the odds. In the case of the supposed "scientists" who rely on it, they are playing the odds that they won't be found out as fake scientists.
Real science is about CONTINUALLY DOUBTING AND QUESTIONING ORTHODOXY...AND TRYING TO Falsify CONSENSUS!
It is a strategic game of modelling reality. You either want double check the prior experiment or you want to further test a variable in the model, to see if it buckles under stress.