Listen now | Replication used to mean testing the robustness of a theory. Scientifically, replication is actually just a failed attempt to falsify a hypothesis, that results in the retention of the current hypothesis. Philosophically, science is attempting to falsify rather than replicate or verify phenomena. It has been argued that falsification is more informative and certain than verification. There are some holes in that argument but the classic example is that if we have a hypothesis that all swans are white, finding more white swans (replication/verification) adds little explanatory power to the hypothesis. However, if we find even one, non-white swan (falsification) we now have non redundant information and can reject a hypothesis and perhaps an entire theory. We could be in error in that observation (our perception is off, the swan is covered in oil), and while that is a serious philosophical concern, it is often ignored.