[kuhewa]

Well, that's the fundamental difference between tech and science. With tech the 'truth' is entirely instrumental - is the product useful? (Not entirely accurate, as a product could be far less useful than the alternatives but still a commercial success).

In science sometimes the goal is instrumental value, but more often it is inferential insight where there isn't a simple 'it works or it doesn't' truth value and the role of methodology and review to control for sources of false positives and false negatives, misconduct, and unwarranted interpretation of data are important.

I'd argue that peer review aids breakthrough science overall, because where shoddy but splashy research slips through review, sometimes years of research effort and funding get funneled into avenues opened by such putative breakthroughs that turn out to have been bullshit all along. The misdirection into dead ends has the opportunity cost of the potential of making real breakthroughs.