What you missing is that scientists exist in insufficient numbers who honor the system, and can be trusted with it.
But maybe you really believe scientists are more trustworthy, on the whole, than anyone else.
"But why should we trust them to correct themselves?"
Better, why should we trust any of them to 'honor the method'?
My freeper homepage appears to be gone. Is this a software glitch, or is it something else? Is there some way I can recover that material?
From conversations with a number of scientists I have an understanding that when it comes to their's and other's work, they are not afraid to tear apart the work of even their friends if it looks susceptible to criticism. In fact it seems a rite of passage to present a paper at a conference and successfully deflate the rather pointed questions from the assembled crowd of fellow scientists. This is far from a conspiracy and seem to work well in filtering out poorly produced research.