> Aren't reproducible results a form of consensus?

Not in the least. "Reproducible results" represents the technical and methodological ability to confirm that an effect is real. "Consensus" is whether a political body is willing to admit that the effect is real.

And we all know politics finds truth to be...

I think this is a semantic argument... If 100 independent scientists reproduce results, those results themselves are a scientific consensus, are they not?

Yes, at that point the political consensus adopts the results of rigorous scientific testing as it's new bling

Insofar as it's a semantic argument, it's irrelevant.

> If 100 independent scientists reproduce results, those results themselves are a scientific consensus

Not in any sense that's relevant to the discovery of new information or its verification.

Maybe in some degenerate form of consensus, like consensus on raw observations. If one person sees a rise in temperature during a reaction, someone else can say "nuh-uh, la la la".

Other forms of scientific disagreement happen, but those disagreements imply different predictions, and can be resolved with more experiments.

Science is a process that bootstraps broad agreements (scientific laws) from very tiny agreements (observations). The fact that a broad agreement (consensus) exists carries no weight if one lone wacky scientist can show reproducible observations that contradict it.