To say that pursuit of truth is worthwhile is itself an article of faith.  But if we assert that it is, we can collectively discuss how that truth seeking ought to occur.

I think there's a difference between science and democracy.  Democracy makes no reference to anything other than the collected votes of a population.  Science isn't driven by consensus, it's driven by a certain pragmatism that accepts the material world as an arbiter.  Your hypothesis either holds up it doesn't, regardless of which way the consensus goes.

It seems you were already getting at that point, but I think that would tell us that science and democracy are not on the same spectrum of truth-seeking.