How would you recommend someone to get up to speed on data reduction to the point where they would be able to recognize such errors and know how to tease out a signal without making similar mistakes?
Well I did a PhD in CMB analysis so that is how I know. Not sure if such things will ever be controllable by people who are not researchers in the field (or at least doing similar kind of data analysis). It is a shame the peer review system cannot be relied on more; I hope a revolution happens there (on the line of "N accredited researchers trust/distrust this paper").