Peer review has become the gold standard to back-up any claim in popular "science" (the scientific community understand that peer review is often just the first stage in proving the validity of your work). Peer review is a powerful first filter for scientific research, but the term has become a marketing ploy for so-called predatory journals.
These are journals which will publish almost anything for a fee. They have become the backbone of the woo-and-con industry, who use them to backup their claims with the golden tag "peer reviewed". It's hard to spot a predatory journal if you are not an active researcher, and only slightly easier if you are. Help is at hand in the form of Beall's List. The journals that make the list are pay-to-publish, and not suitably peer reviewed with any rigour, a number fo them are not peer reviewed at all, as evidenced by the fact that they have published and re-published Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List- a paper by David Mazieres which is comprised entirely of the words "get me off your fucking mailing list".
It's even worse tha n manipulating the peer reviewed process.
I see more and more often. Many will give the same weight to a paper written by some one with a doctorate, as they will read something from some conspiracy nut living in his moms basement.
I honestly believe that it is better to teach children how to learn, rather that what to learn.
Sadly there are many conspiracy nuts with doctorates. The academic world is tough these days and I think some unscrupulous people see their own credentials as a lever with which to con peoples wallets open- Deepak Chopra is a perfect example.