alt Hacker NewsI will add it's a little more complicated than I wanted to let on here as I don't identify it in the process. But it definitely was misconduct on this one.
I read the paper as well. My background is mathematics and statistics and the data was quite frankly synthesised.
Okay, but to return to replications, publishers could incentivize replications by linking replication studies directly on a paper's website location. In fact, you could even have a collection of DOIs for these purposes, including for datasets. With this point in mind, what I find depressing is that the journal declined a follow-up comment.
But the article is generally weird or even harmful too. Going to social media with these things and all; we have enough of that "pretty" stuff already.