Comment by bluGill
6 hours ago
If you are not in the field, consensus is often almost impossible to figure out. Remember what gets published is things that are controversial. Thus, things that have consensus are things that are going to be silent in literature if you search for it. Thus, if you're searching for something, you may not actually find the consensus if you're looking, and so the study is hard when you're not already an expert.
> Thus, things that have consensus are things that are going to be silent in literature if you search for it.
Not really; generally consensus ideas will be mentioned in passing while discussing something else. You can get a strong sense of the consensus that way.
For example, I bought several textbooks on early Mesopotamian history, which taught me that Marxism enjoys a strong consensus in that field. And it's not even relevant to the field!