This is a great characterization of why peer review is great - it makes honest scientists better. A lot of progress is driven by "jumps" from influential papers

This is a great characterization of why peer review is great - it makes honest scientists better. A lot of progress is driven by "jumps" from influential papers, and we want those to be as good as they can. It may not stop frauds, but the frauds weren't going to help us anyway. I think fraudulent research mostly hurts by distracting honest scientists and new scientists, not by convincing them of something untrue.