Examples of fields with hundreds of years of 'peer-reviewed research':

-Alchemy

-Phrenology

-Humor theory

-Spontaneous generation theory

-Astronomical geocentrism

-Ether theory

-Graphology

-Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalysis

-Astrology

all of them were once respected fields, complete with papers, journals, professorships, exams, etc.

By the way, speaking as someone in academia, you'd be surprised at how little 'peer-reviewed' means in terms of scientific validity. There's plenty of crap in Nature and Science and everyone knows about it.

I agree that "peer-reviewed" is a pretty low bar, although a better example would be more modern fields like those recently dubbed "Grievance Studies" -- formal peer review was not common even in hard sciences until maybe 50 years ago, quite a bit later than geocentrism.

But GP is correct that this is not junk science. The basic ideas of psychometrics were pretty clear 100 years ago. They've been widely attacked since then, both casual mud-slinging (Alchemy, Astrology...) and also people who drilled into the details and tried to prove things wrong. Arguably the former strategy has had more effect than the latter.