It's more complex than just that. Sure, there's the people trying to make a dollar who are willing to do bad science in order to get the result they want. But there's also the general publication bias against replication studies - who wants to read them, and who wants to do them (they're not usually seen as prestigious academically: most academics want to test their ideas, not those of others.And then there's cultural differences in which people sometimes see a negative result as a "failure", don't publish it as a result, and instead skew the data and lie their asses off in order to gain prestige in their career. As long as nobody double checks you, you're good.
autoexec|2 years ago
Academia seems like the idea place for this. Why not require a certain number of replicated studies in order to get a degree? Universities could then be constantly churning out replication studies.
More importantly, why do we bother taking anything that hasn't been replicated seriously? Anyone who publishes a paper that hasn't been verified shouldn't get any kind of meaningful recognition or "credit" for their discovery until it's been independently confirmed.
Since anyone can publish trash, having your work validated should be the only means of gaining prestige in your career.
cm2012|2 years ago