Feynman has a bit where empirixal measurements of some universal constant (electron charge?) slowly crept up to the now-accepted true value. He said scientists

Feynman has a bit where empirixal measurements of some universal constant (electron charge?) slowly crept up to the now-accepted true value. He said scientists are a little bit ashamed of this, because it showed that higher estimates were discarded and not published - bias. BTW scientists get no upvotes for merely reproducing "known" results. Is there a way to see natural merit/discovery in reproducing (not an artificial incentive, like grants for repeating studies). Perhaps analogous to how teaching helps your own understanding?