>How can the party line be wrong when it has the crucial proof on its side: majority voted for it. Majority of scientists, though, but then they also have to keep an eye on their grants and publishing...

It might be simpler.

This around 1600:

And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Or, as someone who was lining up a putt told me:
"You think long, you think wrong."