Excellent article! Wow - stringing together all of those consensus arguments from the past and mocking them.
As an aerospace engineer, I often argued with my colleagues and management that just because everyone in the room (except for a few skeptics) agreed on something, that it was the right decision to make.
Often, the consensus of a "team" was the "lowest common denominator" opinion, and resulted in a wrong decision, a weak decision or a delayed decision. Of course, the skeptics in the group insisted on using the scientific mewthod and past experience rather than the consensus approach.
In these "consensual" decisions, it was often the loudest voice or the most aggressive personality in the "team" that drove the group to the "consensus." And they were usually proven wrong by future events and occasional catastrophic failures.
You can always tell when the skeptics are right - all of the "know-it-alls" disagree with them, try to coerce them to agree with the consensus opinion, call them names, and threaten their livelihood.
We need a million Michael Crichton's.
See my comments, post #58.