In recognized and respected Journals, the peer review process is performed by more than three Referees who are specialized and experts in the area under study. If there are conflicting reviews than the Editor usually gets further opinions from other experts in the field. Besides, even if the paper goes through and is published, experts can still jump in to publish their opinions on it or the paper could be revoked if the work is fraud or plagiarized--such things have happened several times even in top journals with high impact factor such as Nature and Science.
> The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any > more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the > validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on > the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the > public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most > objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is > biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often > insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently > wrong. -- Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The > Lancet [Horton, Richard (2000). "Genetically modified food: > consternation, confusion, and crack-up". MJA 172 (4): 148–9. PMID > 10772580] >
