  The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a slew of misinformation, often
described as an "infodemic". Whereas previous research has focused on the
propagation of unreliable sources as a main vehicle of misinformation, the
present study focuses on exploring the role of scientists whose views oppose
the scientific consensus. Using Nobelists in Physiology and Medicine as a proxy
for scientific consensus, we analyze two separate datasets: 15.8K tweets by
13.1K unique users on COVID-19 vaccines specifically, and 208K tweets by 151K
unique users on COVID-19 broadly which mention the Nobelist names. Our analyses
reveal that dissenting scientists are amplified by a factor of 426 relative to
true scientific consensus in the context of COVID-19 vaccines, and by a factor
of 43 in the context of COVID-19 generally. Although more popular accounts tend
to mention consensus-abiding scientists more, our results suggest that this
false consensus is driven by higher engagement with dissent-mentioning tweets.
Furthermore, false consensus mostly occurs due to traffic spikes following
highly popularized statements of dissenting scientists. We find that dissenting
voices are mainly discussed in French, English-speaking, Turkish, Brazilian,
Argentine, Indian, and Japanese misinformation clusters. This research suggests
that social media platforms should prioritize the exposure of consensus-abiding
scientists as a vehicle of reversing false consensus and addressing
misinformation stemming from seemingly credible sources.

Social and Information Networks;Physics and Society