Peer review is absolutely not without its flaws. The amount of bias that saturates the process has caused serious issues in certain fields and outright failed in the case of the Amyloid Hypothesis that incorrectly guided Alzheimer's research for 16 years. During that period, it was the most frequently cited paper on the subject. Reviewers missed obvious red flags and played gatekeeper to those with challenging ideas. There's dirty pool involved in the peer review process at times, and it should not be considered sacrosanct. It's an invaluable tool, but it's not an infallible one.