“Consensus” vs. “Mainstream”

I posted on the disadvantages of consensus thinking a few months ago. I recently checked how often the words “consensus” and its near synonym “mainstream” were used on several different newsgroups. I came up with the following results:

Newsgroup	“consensus”	“mainstream”	ratio
alt.revisionism	3970	8250	0.48
talk.origins	7320	11,000	0.67
sci.environment	6520	2940	2.22
talk.abortion	5730	3120	1.84

When I try arguing against consensus thinking, I sometimes run into the objection that creationists and/or neo-nazis also object to the mainstream. It looks like the terminology used is quite different, with fascist dissidents objecting to the mainstream. and libertarian dissidents objecting to consensus. That should not be surprising. After all, the consensus is used as a way to stop thought, whereas the mainstream implies flow, so it can change.

UPDATE: I have added a line for talk.abortion.