Sifting through information for things that confirm a theory (or hypothesis) is indeed the scientific method, from Roger Bacon to Galileo to Tycho Brahe to Francis Bacon to Percy Bridgeman. Even if it is only for confirmationals, as long as the observations are made carefully and the data recorded. See for example work of the botanist Robert Brown in 1827, which was used by Einstein in the first few years of the twentieth century to develop a key method of statiscal physics in his "diffusion equation". It is that work which won Einstein his Nobel Prize. Wikipedia claims Brown did not offer a theory at the time he published his observations, but actually he did. He said they were not related to life. The magic of motion wasn't due to unknown life forms. It was mechanical. Yet "consensus" is NOT a scientific method.