http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/physics-and-pixie-dustMost interesting is that Schön’s frauds actually benefited from rigorous peer review at elite journals, much as earlier forgers benefited from the advanced techniques of text-obsessed humanists. The critiques and suggestions that Schön received in referee reports told him exactly what it would take to convince skeptics about new findings. If his amazing plastics really did show evidence of superconductivity, reviewers pressed, had Schön checked for such and such effects or measured this or that parameter? Schön could then deliver those results right back, in perfect keeping with expectations.
Two years ago I had a paper published in a peer reviewed journal. A large part of my article directly contradicted one they had published several years prior. I wondered if I would get the same peer reviewer (no way of knowing since they are anonymous). My paper was implicitly arguing that the prior paper's peer reviewer was incompetent. It's impossible to know for sure, but I think that my peer reviewer also reviewed the paper I was attacking.