I'm not an academic, but I notice a trend in the top journals where replication studies aren't taken with the same glamour as original studies. Considering mountains of recent research show the majority of studies in many fields may in fact be irreproducible 1 2 3 4 etc, how can journals as a whole be taken seriously?
As a scientist, surely the scientific method must be respected, and one tenet of that method is reproducibility. This fundamental part of science seems to have taken a backdoor seat, and is not taken too seriously it seems. Be it due to funding, lack of prestige, or whatever. The end results are tainted/irreproducible studies that are cited many hundreds of times, distorting the truth of the world.
I respect there are individual initiatives recently to replicate large numbers of studies, but replication should be the norm, not the exception.
My question is, why are prestigious journals relied upon in terms of status, knowledge and information exchange, when in fact the replication rates of their studies are quite low, and there is no guarantee of any study you publish, cite or rely upon actually being accurate unless it's been replicated?
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