'how many truly revolutionary ideas have come from people/scientists who went against this "collective, nearly unanimous informed opinions'

This is a half truth. LOTS of people have disagreed and continue to disagree with the dominant paradigm. The vast majority of them are wrong. And the ones who were right demonstrated such complete understanding of their subject - including the theories they were supplanting - that few of them were doubted to be brilliant even when they were wrong. Comic book history of science tells us that 'people' scoffed at Galileo and Columbus and Einstein. Those who assert this are just wrong. Nobody who understood what was going on scoffed at these guys - even when they disagreed with them.

I can think of one tragic case that meets this criteria - Ignaz Semmelweis. However, in this case one has to cheat - like a creationist. The people who persecuted and ridiculed Semmelweis - and who were probably ultimately responsible for his death - were not scientists: they were doctors. Of course, when creationists compile their list of "scientists who disagree with evolution" they list a bunch of MDs, vets, and engineers, as well. They gotta scrounge pretty low to inflate the list. The followers who aren't prone to doing homework are not likely to notice (or even care).

Anyway, that's a major difference between these the real scientific revolutionaries and the creationist pretenders.

As for your geophysicist friend, there are people who abandon reason the world over and join cults - $cientology, Hare Krishna, the religion of the week.