Without a doubt, there is cruft in the sense of gatekeepers and institutionalized power as short-hands for who to trust, but in the grand scheme of things the most power is in reaching a closer approximation of the truth. There is no strict structured system for obtaining scientific consensus, it's simply the individual actions of different researchers, labs, and institutions that choose to build on the work of others or challenge it that cooperatively reach outcomes that benefit all of mankind. There are plenty of parasites growing on the scientific community, like the publication system, but these things don't define it, they're simply hangers on and the scientific community has existed in plenty of times and places without something like it.
