alt Hacker NewsAdvanced groups usually replicate their competitor's results in their own hands shortly after publication (or they just trust their competitor's competence). But they don't spend any time publishing it unless they fail to replicate and can explain why they can't replicate. From their perspective, it's a waste of time. I think this has been shown to be a naive approach (given the high rate of image fraud in molecular biology) but people who are in the top of the field have strong incentives to focus on moving the state of the art forward without expending energy on improving the field as a whole.
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All that makes it more important for top journals to reward replication, not less!
Are you explaining this from experience or from speculation?
I can tell you that it doesn't match my own experience. I also think it doesn't match your example. Those cases of verified image fraud are typically part of replication efforts. The reason the fraud is able to persist is due to the lack of replication, not the abundance of it.
"strong incentives to focus on moving the state of the art forward without expending energy on improving the field as a whole"
That sort of Orwellian doublethink is exactly the problem. They need to move it forward without improving it, contribute without adding anything, challenge accepted dogma without rocking the boat, and...blech!