Peer reviewing articles is like allowing someone to finish a marathon and then disqualify her-him because of a false start

Three years of work, a fortune in research equipment, sleepless nights in the field, trying to keep everything working, months of analysing and writing to finally, at the finish line, hear that the whole idea of your precious research was flawed from the beginning. As a researcher I had multiple experiences where I wish I had the feedback from reviewers at the start, rather than at the end of my research. As a reviewer I read papers where I wished I could have warned the authors of a fatal flaw in their experimental design before they set out for the field. In this presentation I will rant at high speed about how the current form of peer review, originally well intended, has mutated into a grotesque monster that should be lovingly euthanized or, if it refuses, violently butchered. Not wanting to end on too dark a note, I will sketch how a newer, younger, less bitter, more helpful and beautiful incarnation of peer review could grow from the ashes of its former self.