Actually, it's not funny. It's quite sad. Peer review is losing it's "validity". So is science.
Science used to look at all the data, all the observations were considered as the scientist searched for the truth. Peer review was in place so that a new discovery could be seen by all and thus "reviewed" to see if it correlated with the findings of other scientists and their observations. Everything was heading for the big picture, the real truth of this world. Everyone was open to new ideas and you could get quite a name if you found something new.
The thing is, we have now got a solid fact based truth of how the world got to where it is. It's age and how the creatures and humans ended up here. This "fact" that is taught everywhere is "evolution". Somewhere it went from a theory taught along side creation, to being the one and only possibility for everything we see when we get up in the morning or stare at a starry sky...The elusive "truth" was found.
PROBLEM.... now, if you are a scientist and your are gathering information and tabulating data... it becomes quite a problem if you discover something that is going to be difficult to fit in the "truth" that academia is teaching and drumming into everyone's head. You discover something.... it just won't fit the model. But, you retest and find it to be true. Do you dare present this new observation? Hardly... you will be scoffed at, ridiculed, funding will be stopped, careers ruined.. credibility...lost. Any paper will be ripped to shreds by the hive mind.
So, you have a choice. Cover it up, lose it, distort it so that it fits. Skew the results or forget it all together.
Now, on the other hand, a paper of vague credibility that fits the present day model, will be welcomed with open arms and you will be patted on the back for such a superb job. If your work is close but not a perfect fit, someone else out there will be happy to show you the way to mold it into the model.
What I am saying is that scientist today are looking, more, for proof of the existing dogma instead of looking at the observations and letting the truth unfold. The are out to prove a concept at whatever cost.
Why have we veered from this foundational necessity of science? Pour water on the ground and see where it flows... but oh no.......... that's not where the water should have went, according to the past predictions. So, you carve up the land, digging here, mounding there and in the end the water flows just where it was predicted to flow........ Not the true path but that's not what matters.
Science is no longer a quest for truth. It is a bunch of egg heads picking up the pieces they want and leaving behind anything that could cause difficulty in putting the truth together.
Peer review becomes "pal" review. A bunch of good 'ol boys patting each other on the back, keeping the funding and gravy train rolling, maintaining their "good" names and fancy labs. Keeping their supporters and investors happy while the truth, well the truth is not important.