the think collective = the collective mind?

Context:

BSR: If you could live your career again, would you change anything?

PD: About as much as you can change, given the same 46 chromosomes and about 60,000 genes I have in these chromosomes! I would possibly be more diplomatic than I was, when I first discovered the many paradoxes of the virus-AIDS hypothesis and of the now-prevailing gene-mutation hypothesis of cancer. But I would not be a scientist who ranks acceptance by the mainstream higher than scientific discovery. Since we all live only once I would rather be respected by the next generation for a lasting scientific contribution, than by the current one for work that is popular now
but scientifically flawed.

So working outside the think collective is not all bad, once you have tenure like I do. But it would be lethal for a young American professor without tenure, trying to make a career in the current funding system in the United States.