alt Hacker News> A peer reviewer reads a paper and make comments on it. That's it! They don't check primary data, they don't investigate methods, they don't interrogate scientists, they don't re-run experiments just to double check. They assist a journal's editors in editing--that's it.
Um, what? I have done all these things in reviews, and know other academics that have done these things as well. More confusingly though, if you are saying most reviewers don't do these things (which I agree with), this would only strengthen my point?
I'll let readers decide if it is my comments that exacerbate the problem, or if, perhaps, it is apologism for journalistic peer review that might be causing bigger issues in the present day.
Would be interesting if you would be willing to share a paper you reviewed and detail your review process of it. I don't see how one could check primary data or interrogate scientists in a blind review process, for example.