It would be good (especially with the replication crisis), but historically to earn a PhD, especially at a top-tier institution, the criteria is conducting original research that produces new knowledge or unique insights.

Replicating existing results doesn't meet that criteria so unknowingly repeating someone's work is an existential crisis for PhD students. It can mean that you worked for 4-6 years on something that the committee then can't/won't grant a doctorate for and effectively forcing you to start over.

Theoretically, your advisor is supposed to help prevent this as well by guiding you in good directions, but not all advisors are created equal.

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Apocryphon 7 hours ago | parent [-]

And here we once again see an example of misaligned incentives baked into another one of our most hallowed institutions.

	▲	antonvs 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The problem is that what the “hallowed institutions” are trying to do is extremely ridiculous: turn the kind of work that scientific geniuses did into something that can be replicated by following a formula. It’s as if a committee of middle managers got together and said, “how can we replicate and scale the work of people like Einstein?”