> It's exactly this central dogma that I question; an arbitrary number of people can be wrong about something without it magically becoming correct.

Language is arbitrary and when enough people agree that a word means something, it does.

Do you insist that "nice" can only mean "foolish" and not kind because that was its original meaning, or do you accept that it now means "kind"?

If the latter, you also actually agree that the meaning of words can change once enough people use them a new way.