[pcwalton]

I'm curious: how does something this obviously flawed get through peer review for Nature?

(I believe you that this is bad science.)

Edit: I answered my own question here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Reports (Summary: It's not Nature; it's a "megajournal" affiliated with it with apparently much lower editorial standards.)

[thanatosmin]

It's hard to say--peer review isn't anything magical. Three experts read a paper and provide a recommendation to the journal editor. Ultimately, it's only the journal editor who decides whether to publish something. Unfortunately, the whole process is confidential, so in most of these cases it's not possible for most people to know what happened.

[nextos]

Exactly. Scientific Reports (and Nature Communications) is sometimes used for papers that don't get into Nature or any of its siblings (Genetics, Methods, Protocols, Biotechnology).

[adrianN]

Can confirm. Had a paper rejected by Nature with the suggestion to send it to Scientific Reports instead. Scientific Reports accepted it.