Reproduction is boring, but it would often happen incidentally to building off someone else's results.

You tell me that this reaction creates X, and I need X to make Y. If I can't make my Y, sooner or later it's going to occur to me that X is the cause.

Like I said, I know it's never that easy. Bench work is hard and there are a million reasons why your idea failed, and you may not take the time to figure out why. You won't report such failures. And complicated results, like in sociology, are rarely attributable to anything.